The Nature of Love
by Flawless Masquerade
Summary: The world of Yugioh exists in the real world, bound by the laws of our reality. This is a love story about an inventor. Will a real life Seto Kaiba change himself for love? Or will he change love itself?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: We do not own Yugioh, however everything else in this fiction is our own intellectual property and woe betide thee if you dare to steal it.

Author's Note: This story, all of it, not just this chapter, is a fusion of our dreams, our memories and our love. We wrote it to heal a sorrow, and to fulfill a seven year old fantasy. Any feedback is much appreciated.

~ Flawless Masquerade

**Chapter One**

The first day back at High School after Christmas was a sea of wonderful balmy heat that you could almost touch, topped with a crystal-clear sky that glowed a tantalising sapphire-blue. Typical. It was days like this that made Emily appreciate Winter. At least you knew what to expect. Like big storms. Big storms were always such romantic things; making love indoors next to a fire while a raging torrent battered impotently at the windows... well, a girl could dream. She was a sixteen-year old young woman with cheeky blue eyes, a feisty smile, and long, dark brown hair. She strode to the office block, laughing inwardly at the haggard faces of her fellow students - clearly they weren't as happy about starting the new year of school as she was. She had finally got her wish and been put up a full year, rather than just doing advanced classes. This meant this was her final year, and that she'd leave High School as a seventeen-year-old graduate. Although she was rueful that the good weather had only started when she couldn't enjoy it as much, part of her couldn't wait to get back to class - especially Art, her unrivalled favourite. Except for maybe French.

The receptionist in the school office raised her eyebrows when she picked up Emily's timetable.

"Are you the same Emily Rose I met last year? You grew up awfully fast!" she chirped. "It'll be a shame to see you go so soon."

"As much as I like it here," said Emily cheerfully, "I don't want to be here any longer than I have to. Days like this make me want to climb a cliff and paint the horizon. I can't do that while I'm glued to a desk!"

"Looks like a pretty packed schedule. Don't overdo it, okay?" laughed the receptionist as she handed over the dense little chart. Emily looked over it eagerly.

"YUSS!" she whooped. "French and Art History on Monday mornings. And Wednesday is pretty much all my favourite classes, and it's a short day too. And the week ends with IT, oh, this is wonderful! See you later, Mrs Steiner!"

Mrs Steiner's wry waving went unnoticed as she bounced away towards her new Homeroom at the upper end of the school with her face buried in her timetable. She was already thinking about how she was going to colour-code it. French would be Gold, she decided, as appropriate to its high status. And Art Painting... she was glad she had managed to get into two Art classes as planned. She would colour that in when she had access to her Art supplies. Sparkles were definitely in order. She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't notice that she was about to step off the sheltered concrete path and into a garden. She put her left foot down, and it took strangely long to reach its destination. And when it did, her ankle sagged awkwardly to one side and she tumbled through the air, landing clumsily on her side. She groaned. She sat up carefully and rubbed her ankle. Nobody came to her rescue. A group of girls who had seen her fall giggled gleefully amongst themselves and shot occasional glances her way to see if she had noticed them. Boys wandered past her, not even looking into the garden where she lay. She was about to struggle to her feet when a hand appeared in front of her. She looked up. A brown-haired boy wearing surprisingly formal clothes - at her school there were no uniforms for the students - towered over her, looking disdainfully in her general direction. She took his hand and he tugged her briskly to her feet.

"Thank you," she said gratefully. It was nice to see that there was still some good in humanity after all.

"Don't mention it. I would of done the same for any fool who didn't watch where they were going," he replied condescendingly. He turned around and began to walk away.

"Hey! You can't just help me and then insult me!" she yelled, going from blissful gratitude to a towering rage in an instant. She chased angrily after him.

"Don't forget your timetable, kid," he called over his shoulder, sniggering.

She balked. Her timetable was still in the bushes! She spun around and dashed back to where she had fallen.

"Asshole," she muttered to herself as she plucked her timetable from the ground. There was a smudge of dirt right through the middle of it. She cursed. The cluster of girls giggled even harder as she stomped off in search of her new Home Room.

The Home Room she was in this year was one of the rooms used for Cooking classes; situated in the heart of the oldest section of the school. The desks were worn smooth by countless schoolbooks, and covered liberally with an astounding patina of graffiti both modern and antique. She picked up a chair that had the smallest amount of bubblegum on the underside and placed it in the middle of the room, at a desk close to the teacher's table. She knew that most of the other students thought of her as a try-hard that tried to ingratiate herself with the teachers just to improve her grades. In reality, she just liked to treat the teachers as people. She found many of them easier to talk to than her peers, who weren't all bad people, but were far too obsessed with the politics of High School life for her liking. She was the first person in the room, even though the bell had just rung. She felt a twinge of panic. Maybe seniors got to start later than she was used to? Her fears were assuaged as the classroom door was flung open violently, its flight being softened at the last moment by its pneumatic hinge. An apple flew through the door and shattered against the leg of a desk, followed in by a group of big boys who were laughing and shoving each other in an apparently macho fashion.

"Greeeeaaat," muttered Emily. These must be the guys who were taking 7th form for the third year in a row. She giggled at the thought. They were probably the ones who drew all the penises inside half of the school's copies of _Level 6 Science__**. **_Luckily, boys like that always sat at the _back_ of the class, so she felt relatively safe from anything they might do, save the odd low-flying apple core. Her intuition was confirmed when the boys knocked their chairs from off the tops of the tables and began slouching diagonally on them, seeing if they could bend the chair's plastic legs. A few girls walked into the class and sat on the far left of the classroom and laughed as one of the boys tried – and failed – to balance a chair on his chin. Seven minutes after the bell had rung to signal the beginning of Home Room, a thin man in his thirties shoved the door open with his shoulder and waddled into the room with a large box in his hands and a roster clenched between his teeth. Emily's spirits lifted immediately. It was Ron, her old English teacher. Scatterbrained and eccentric, he was nonetheless the most gifted teacher she had ever had. He had a strange way of understanding what students needed that had made him well-loved at Titirangi High School. That, and the fact that he seemed to regard teaching policy as a highly flexible item that didn't necessarily apply to him. Emily reckoned that he had probably never even read the document in question. She didn't mind. He knew Latin.

"G'morning shudents," he grunted in a friendly manner. He dumped the box solidly on his desk and plucked the roster from between his teeth gracefully.

"Well well, who do we have this year? Emily! Hah, I heard you were put up. Recommended it myself, actually." One of the girls in the background snorted. "Grace! I thought you graduated last year! A pleasure to have your company again, I'm sure." He smiled. Grace resumed painting her nails with a sour look on her face. Ron nodded at a few of the other students he knew. The boys whooped when he mentioned their names. Ron ticked them off his list and noted the absentees - about forty percent of his list.

"Alright, you kids can do whatever until the bell rings. I've got to set up all this gear before the next teacher comes."

Emily hovered at his elbow.

"Ron, would you be able to print another copy of my timetable for me? The one I got this morning was ruined by...ah, a freak accident," she embellished.

"Sure Emily," he grinned. "Just help me organise all this cutlery and I'll print you off a new copy."

They clattered merrily around the room, chatting about Ron's latest car purchase - a 1955 Hillman Minx in dilapidated condition, that he had been refurbishing over the summer. They were still chatting animatedly by Ron's computer when the bell rang. Emily cringed. The mouse had been stuck on the irritating spinning rainbow wheel for what seemed like an age before the printer actually reacted. As soon as the last line of ink had been applied to the page she jerked it from the machine and ran off, shouting her goodbyes to Ron as she sprinted towards her French class. She was never normally late for anything, but today fate seemed to be conspiring against her.

"Why today, of all days?" she thought as she dashed down the halls. She burst through the door of her French class and began apologising in flawless French, when she noticed Him, sitting in the corner at the back of the class. It was that asshole from before! She gasped.

The teacher was slightly bemused at Emily's incomplete apology. She waved to an empty chair in the front row near the door. "Er, thank you for that, erm..." she glanced at her class roll. "Ah, you must be Emily. My name is Erica. Assez vous, s'il vous plait."

Emily sat down. While the French teacher welcomed them all to their final year of French class, Emily snuck a glance at the boy. He wasn't paying attention to the teacher at all. He was staring morosely out of the window. This guy really was a piece of work. Too cool to pay attention, even though this was his final year. And who was he, anyway? She'd never seen him around before. She knew most of the seniors by sight, if not by name, as she had participated in a few higher-up classes last year. By his outfit she guessed he must be an exchange student - waaaaay too formal to be from around here. He turned his baleful stare onto her, and smirked coldly. She hurriedly looked to the front. Erica was summing up her introduction.

"And now, mon ami, let's see if you have been practising over the holidays! I would like some volunteers to describe what they've done during the holidays. Perhaps one of you boys from the back?"

Emily recognised one of the boys from her Home Room sitting in the back row with some of his friends. He stopped rocking in his chair and assumed a blank look, hoping to deter his teacher's gaze. Erica sighed.

"And how about you, Mister Kaiba?" she looked at the blue-eyed boy.

"No thank you, Miss. Why don't you ask Emily? She's clearly dying to share with us all." He smirked again.

"Alright Emily, let's see what you know," Erica smiled at Emily.

Emily felt like a deer in headlights. She'd actually raised her hand to ask if she could go to the toilet. She was more than competent for the task she was being asked to do, but doing just because this Kaiba kid had put her on the spot was galling.

Emily began carefully describing her holiday and recent weeks. She saw Kaiba watching her, with a smirk playing along his lips. She flourished and used some of the best words in her vocabulary, striving to show him that French was not a class you could just slack in, but nothing seemed to wipe the condescending smirk off his face. Rage boiled in her again. She finished her speech with an avid description of a chauvinistic idiot with brown hair and blue eyes. She spat the words acidly at the back row and then sat down pointedly. The class clapped bemusedly. Erica's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Well, that was... interesting. Your French was perfect though. Well done!" she said.

"It was merely passable," said Kaiba. "Miss, I'd like to describe my holiday after all. It might be a useful demonstration of the subjunctive tense when used in conjunction with the past tense."

"Certainly, Seto, go right ahead," said Erica.

Seto? What a strange name, Emily mused. He wasn't European, then, despite his looks.

Kaiba stood at the front of the class. In precise, almost fluent French, he described a boat trip with his brother. His vocabulary was considerably higher standard than the things Emily was used to seeing in school. In fact, it was stuff only _she _knew.

"Your use of the subjunctive is incorrect," said Emily. "It should be ais, not ait."

"I believe you are incorrect," said Kaiba, looking unperturbed. "You should focus on your sense of direction before you start looking for imaginary mistakes. At least I can navigate my way to class without falling on my face."

"I -" started Erica.

"At least I don't think I'm better than everybody else in the world! Didn't your parents ever teach you common decency? shouted Emily.

His face darkened. He growled, "don't you dare talk about my par-"

"That's ENOUGH, you two!" said Erica. "Both of you, leave the room and wait for me outside!"

Emily was about to argue, but Erica looked furious. At that moment, there was a loud crash in the back of the class. The boy from Emily's Home Room had rocked too hard on his chair and had toppled over, cracking his skull on the corner of a nearby desk.

"Oh god," gasped Erica, rushing over.

"What's happened to Daniel?" said someone.

"Oh man, he's bleeding everywhere!" shouted Daniel's friend.

"I think I'm going to be sick," said one of the girls.

Daniel was groaning softly. Erica and his friend lifted him up and helped him towards the doorway.

"I'll deal with you two when I get back," she snarled at Emily and Kaiba. "I'm putting you both in detention." She lifted the groaning Daniel's arm over her shoulder and, together with Daniel's friend, headed urgently towards the infirmary. Emily sat down and put her palms over her eyes. She couldn't believe it. She'd never had a detention in her life. Never! And now she'd pretty much ruined one of her favourite classes, right at the start of the year. She felt like crying.

Without the teacher there, the class instantly became a miniature riot. Balls of paper began flying everywhere, and the other students sat on their desks and discussed in loud voices whether Daniel would need stitches, and wondering aloud whether the cleaning ladies had stuff that could remove blood from the carpet. Emily peered sideways at the cause of her misery. He was sitting, like the eye of a storm, calm and serene in the midst of the chaos, reading a book. He didn't look upset in the slightest. Emily put her head on the desk and buried her face in her arms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Emily's classes felt totally different with the looming detention drawing nearer. English faded by. She vaguely remembered her new teacher, an excitable young blonde woman who looked barely older than the students. The rest of the day slipped past, taking seemingly forever and no time at all, in some perverse way. It was lunch time all too suddenly. She made sure she was at the detention room on time. She didn't want to make things any worse by being late. Kaiba was there already, still reading his book, apparently without a care in the world. It was a thick tome, but it looked like he had almost finished it. Other students began to gather about the door to the detention room. She felt humiliated. Nearly all of them were young students, people she was three or four years ahead of now. There were no students from her year, except, of course, the taciturn Kaiba. A teacher came down the hall and waded through the small crowd to unlock the door. The motley group shuffled into the room and took their seats. Emily felt it strange that they went to casually into the room where their punishment was to be. Kaiba snapped his book shut and slid gracefully through the door, and Emily, realising she was last, hurried in after him. Of course there was only one seat left. Next to him. The day clearly wasn't finished with her yet. She thumped down in her chair meaningfully, hoping he could feel the menace she was attempting to radiate in his direction. The teacher doing the detention began doing the roll call. Emily's cheeks burned when her name was called out. She imagined the other students in the room had heard her name and were now itching to get out and tell everyone she knew that she, Emily Straight-A Rose, had been in detention. The teacher got up and closed the door to the room.

"Alright students. You're staying here until that clock hits 2pm. That's thirty minutes. Anyone who makes a peep will get a second detention. Your time starts now." The man sat down and unfolded a newspaper.

Emily didn't have any homework yet. Nonetheless, she got out one of her exercise books and tried to stay busy. She wasn't very successful. After a few half-hearted attempts to write herself a maths quiz, she began drawing exquisite doodles. She looked at the clock. Only five minutes had gone by. She looked on the bright side. At least Kaiba was here with her! She snuck a glance at him. He was gazing calmly forward, his hands clasped in front of him. He noticed her staring, and smirked. He produced a writing pad and began writing on it. She looked out the window at all the happy students outside in the warm sun, playing and fooling around and laughing. She saw a soft breeze rippling the leaves of the trees and tugging softly at the clothes of the happy people outside. She sighed softly and turned back to her doodles. There was a scrap of paper on it covered in nonsense letters. Kaiba was looking pointedly in the other direction. She examined the scrap more closely. It said:

**Tjp'mz vi dydjo.**

She frowned. What was this supposed to be? The letters looked meaningless at first. But she noticed that they were punctuated.

"It must be some kind of code," she thought. She tried to think of all the codes she'd ever seen. She knew E was the most common letter used in English, but the text was too short for her to try extrapolating from that. She looked at Kaiba again. He coughed and looked away, spreading his fingers at the same time. Five. She looked at the letters again. Of course! A simple letter slide. She translated the sentence by counting five letters forward from the letters that were written. A message formed slowly beneath her pen. It said:

**You're an idiot.**

She gritted her teeth. That Kaiba! She tore off her page of doodles from her writing pad and started scribbling madly on the new page. She polished it off, writing with perhaps more pressure than was necessary. The strain on her pen was considerable. She glanced upwards. The teacher grunted and raised his newspaper up over his eyes. She slid the paper over to Kaiba. She'd given him the whole page to avoid making a loud tearing noise. It'd give him plenty of working space, she thought gleefully. The code was variation of the pigpen cipher, also known as the Masonic cipher, but she'd reversed the order of the letters, so that the alphabet was in the opposite order. She wondered if he'd finish it before their detention was finished. She shaded her eyes and watched him try to work out the code. Minute, organised scribbles were already covering the top of the space she'd left for him. He was clearly familiar with the pigpen cipherbut her modification was garbling his answers. He paused in his scribbling and sat up, squeezing his chin reflectively. Emily took out her hankie and blew her nose. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She twirled her finger anti-clockwise. He grinned and began scribbling. She watched with satisfaction as the message emerged:

**You've ruined French for me, you arrogant asshole. It's my favourite class.**

Kaiba seemed to consider the message. He turned sideways in his chair so she couldn't see what he was writing. The detention teacher grunted and closed his newspaper. It was 2 o'clock.

"Alright kids! You can leave now. Enjoy the remainder of your lunchtime."

There was a scramble for the door and the silence in the room collapsed and broke. Emily was amazed. The time had somehow flown by. She realised it was due in part to Kaiba's malicious yet fascinating coded note. It nice to be challenged mentally by someone around her age. She was still pissed off at him though. She turned to say something to him, but he was already slipping through the door, his stature causing the younger students to part before him like peasants before a King. The paper he'd been writing on was still on his desk. She lifted it up and read it. This time it was in plain English.

**I'll take care of it.**

She didn't know what to think.

Emily's first class the next day was Info tech, which she loved, mainly because it was so easy. The teacher was fiftyish man named Malcolm who would often scribble the answers to upcoming tests on the blackboard. It was up to the students who weren't throwing glue-sticks into the ceiling to type up the notes and email them to their classmates. Emily liked to sit with Malcolm during lunch times and chat with him and his team of "nerds" as they repaired and maintained the school's aging computers. She was extremely glad Malcolm was doing the advanced computing classes this year. She noticed Kaiba slouching in the back of the room as she walked in. She made a point of sitting at the front of the room and ignoring him. His vague promise yesterday wasn't very convincing, given his behaviour thus far. She spent the duration of the class chatting to Malcolm and pretending Kaiba wasn't there.

She arrived at French class early, hoping to make a good impression. She waited nervously by the door. Erica came down the hall, and her face darkened slightly when she saw Emily. Emily gulped.

"Um, Erica, about yesterday..."

"-We're extremely sorry about our behaviour." It was Kaiba, although goodness knows where he'd come from. The corridor had been empty a second ago! "Emily and I decided to get you these flowers," he said, revealing a startlingly gorgeous bouquet from behind his back, "as a token of our apology. Please do not consider yesterday as a reflection upon our behaviour for the rest of the year."

Erica blushed slightly as she accepted the exotic blossoms. "Well, thank you very much, Seto, Emily, this is very sweet. Here Emily, please hold the flowers while I unlock the door to the classroom." Emily looked askance at Kaiba while Erica fumbled with the lock, but he merely stared straight ahead, his expression imperceptible. Erica was still blushing when the rest of the students arrived and took their seats. Emily sorted through her feelings. Kaiba was definitely still an asshole. He was still too good to sit next to anybody else in the class. But he was a noble asshole. The rich scents of the flowers he had purchased for Erica wafted silkily her way, wafted her way by the air passing through the open window. She decided, for the time being, that things were okay between them. She began encoding another note for him to decipher.

The hard part about being put up a year was that none of her friends were in any of her classes. She still got to see them all at lunchtimes, but their absence certainly lent her lessons a different atmosphere. Even her lessons with the arrogant Kaiba were sometimes dull, when he was too busy with whatever he was doing to send her notes, or when he was absent - which occurred surprisingly often. Despite this, he excelled at every test they had together, rivalling her scores in French and nailing the Infotech examination, despite not having shared his email with his classmates and thus not having access to Malcolm's walkthrough**. **Her weeks started to become a rhythm of Kaiba classes and Not-Kaiba classes. They had a grudging respect for each other despite their rough start. Kaiba clearly had little respect for the school and voiced his opinions on the matter frequently. He was often late to classes, as well.

Kaiba was late to Infotech on one such occasion. He came in and took his usual seat and huffily setup his laptop. Malcolm began to reprimand some miscreants who had decided to play basketball indoors, so Emily was the only person to notice Kaiba cursing to himself in the corner. She wandered over to him.

"Damn this technologically backwards place. What the hell is wrong with the internet around here?" he snarled at his screen.

"The internet's not working," said Emily.

"Yes, I can see that," said Kaiba testily. "Tell me something I _don't _know."

"You didn't let me finish. Something's gone badly wrong with the school's network. They don't know what the problem is, so we have to wait until tomorrow for technicians to come from the maintenance company. Every computer in the school is having problems."

"That's pitiful," Kaiba snorted. "I bet some moron just kicked a plug out somewhere. I think I'll go fix it myself."

"In the middle of class? You'll get detention."

"At least I'll be able to read my emails before I go home." He tucked his laptop into his bag. "I'm outta here."

"Wait," said Emily. "I have an idea." Before Kaiba could protest, she scooted over to Malcolm and assumed her most adorable expression.

"Excuse me Malcolm," she said sweetly.

"Yes, Emily?" said Malcolm distractedly. The basketball he had been trying to confiscate for the last ten minutes was now balanced precariously on a high window sill, and he wasn't letting it out of his sight, lest it fall on one of his precious computers.

"Seto and I have a book report to do for English. Seeing as the computers are all down, could we go to the library for the rest of the period?"

"Whassat?" muttered Malcolm, not turning around. "Library? Report? Certainly. Do what you like."

Emily beamed at Kaiba. "Come on, let's go!"

"I had no idea you were capable of such blatant manipulation," said Kaiba as they strolled down the halls. "I'm almost impressed. I don't remember asking you to come, though."

Emily smiled and decided not to answer. It was fantastic to be wandering the halls with no-one else around. She felt delightfully _bad_.

"So where are we headed, anyway?" she asked him.

"Server room," he said abruptly. "If the whole school is affected, that's the only logical place to look."

"You do know they keep that room locked, don't you?" said Emily helpfully.

"Yep," said Kaiba.

They rounded a corner and headed down a dingy alley-like path that led behind the main office building. A rusty steel door lurked unassumingly down a small flight of stairs. Kaiba glanced at the lock.

"So, Emily, you're a girl..." he began.

"Glad you noticed!" said Emily in exasperation.

"Don't be cute. Hand me a bobby-pin."

"And what makes you think I have one?" she retorted.

"Am I wrong?" he said impatiently. He outstretched his hand.

"...No," she said in a small voice. She rummaged in the front pocket of her satchel and withdrew a tangled mess of items. She plucked a bobby-pin from it and placed it gingerly in his palm. He didn't look at her as he bent the pin deftly and inserted it carefully into the lock. She watched in fascination as he applied pressure upwards and downwards as he manipulated the shape of the pin to match theconfiguration of the hammers inside the lock mechanism. He placed his fingers on the drum of the lock and carefully rotated it along with his pin. He turned the handle of the door below and pulled it open.

"Piece of cake," he muttered. Emily was impressed. It was hard to resent someone so talented, even if they were about as friendly as a dog locked in the same room as a postman. They wandered down a dusty corridor. There were several side rooms full to the brim with computers, monitors, piles of cables and all kinds of computer parts that Emily didn't recognise. The door at the end of the hall was much newer than the rest of the area. It had a seal around the edge. Kaiba casually wrenched it open and strode in. Emily scurried to match his stride. The door squelched shut behind them. Emily began rummaging in her bag for her sweatshirt. The room was icy cold.

"W-w-why's it so c-c-cold in here?" she gasped.

"Computers work better the colder they are," replied Kaiba, who was inspecting a mess of cables that connected to a large server unit in the centre of the room, which was covered in rows and rows of flickering lights. "Servers get more work than the average computer. And they're far more important - and expensive - than all the other computers in the system. If this thing goes down, everything goes down. As you may have noticed. So keeping the server cool is in the school's best interests."

Emily nodded. "Anything I can do to help?"

He didn't reply to her question immediately. "Everything is plugged in, amazingly. Which means..." he cast about momentarily. "Get a couple of screwdrivers and help me get this casing off."

They removed the cover on the server computer. It was a lot smaller than Emily expected. Kaiba examined the circuit-boards scornfully.

"Fried. See that chip there? That's the CPU. It's totally melted. This old piece of crap has probably been dying for months. That's why it's been taking so long for the students to access their home folders."

"What can we do?" asked Emily, disappointed. "We can't just build a whole new server!"

"Why not?" asked Kaiba. "This school is tiny. Any regular old computer would be up to the task. Of course, ideally we want something more powerful..." He grinned suddenly. "Come with me!"

He rushed out of the room. Emily dashed after him. He was in one of the storerooms.

"Take this," he grunted, shoving a computer into her hands.

Back and forth they went, collecting parts. Then they sat in the cold server room, unscrewing parts from the chassis they were mounted inside and stacked them in neat rows. Kaiba plugged his computer directly into the school's internet feed and downloaded a server operating system for their new beast (whilst getting his emails in at the same time). Emily learned more about computers that day than she had in her entire time in Infotech. They built an arrangement of four bare-bones but well-equipped computers and placed them loosely in the server housing, after removing the old melted board and its accompanying connections. Then they connected the new computers together and to all the incoming cables. Kaiba installed the system he had downloaded, insisting that it was far better than the original. Then came the magic moment. They turned on a terminal computer that was in the corner of the room.

"Try to login and access your Student Folder," said Kaiba. She shielded the keyboard with one hand and deftly typed in her password. In place of the usual tedious progress bars and popups as the computer connected to the server, there was a brief flash and the computer was ready. Emily squealed in excitement and clapped her hands.

"Try the internet," said Kaiba.

She opened the internet browser and opened Youtube, picking a video at random from the homepage. The red progress bar on the video slid rapidly to the other side of the player window. She was amazed.

"How did you make the internet go faster?" she asked.

"It's quite simple," he smirked. "The software-"

"Hey! Who's in there?" shouted a voice. The door opened and Malcolm walked in, followed by Mrs Steiner, and Marianna, the school's highly idiotic Vice Principal. Marianna was the last person Emily wanted to see right now - she was known for trying to enforce idiotic policies, such as punishment for girls who wore skirts higher than their ankles. She had also once accused Emily of being "too happy", and had asked her directly if she had taken drugs. Emily gulped. They were in it deep now.

"What's all this? Who fixed the system?" rambled Malcolm.

"We did," said Kaiba shortly.

"Enough of your lies!" barked Marianna. "This area is out-of-bounds to students! There is no way a pair of students like you could have fixed some advanced and delicate machinery such as this. Isn't that right, Malcolm?"

Malcolm wasn't listening. He was despondently fingering the damaged server parts they had removed.

"Fried," nodded Kaiba. "That thing should have been replaced years ago."

"Poor old girl," mumbled Malcolm sadly. Then he looked up. "If the server is broken, what did you replace it with?"

"We made a new server," Emily said defensively. "A better one. With Linux on it. Isn't that right, Seto?"

"You don't believe them, do you, Malcolm?" interjected Marianna. But Malcolm wasn't listening. He was murmuring excitedly to Kaiba as he was shown the results of their labour. Marianna rallied. "Emily, you and that boy are going to be suspended. Breaking into private school property, breaking a valuable piece of equipment and goodness knows what else..."

"Hold on, Marianna," said Mrs Steiner, placing a hand on her shoulder. "If what they say is true, they may have just saved the school thousands of dollars. Those technicians aren't cheap. And neither are server computers."

"...Of course, this is only a temporary measure. Your school should really consider purchasing a dedicated server board with dual or quad CPU ports..." Kaiba was saying in the background.

Marianna stamped her foot. "I'm going to see the Principal about this!" She turned on her heel and strode resolutely down the hall.

"Could you close that door?" asked Malcolm distractedly. "You're letting all the heat in."

"Well done, Emily," Mrs Steiner breathed. "You can tell me later how you managed this - I've got to go and deal with my email backlog, and also cancel the technician's visit. You've saved me a lot of bother, that's for sure!" She hugged Emily and set off down the hall after Marianna, shutting the door behind her, leaving Emily standing alone in the cold. Emily turned and caught Kaiba's eye. He gave her a curt nod.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

They weren't punished for their maverick repair job that day. The Principal was grateful for their work, and indeed, quite proud of their achievements. He warned them, however, that they would be in serious trouble if they went out of bounds again. Marianna was horrified that they had escaped so lightly. Their pictures appeared in the school newspaper along with a picture of the rebuilt server and an article about their feats, entitled _"Rogue IT Students Save the Day"._ Emily didn't show her parents the article. As far as they knew, she'd never ever broken any rules. And before this year, she hadn't. She wasn't sure if she and Kaiba were friends yet, despite their escapades. He was still remote with her, although when their gazes met his smug grin seemed less condescending and more acknowledging than before. She had a fair idea of his timetable, but she never saw him at lunch times. One windy afternoon in May, she was walking out of Art class, heading towards the room near the school field where she hung out with her friends, when she saw him sitting with his back against a tree. He was alone, staring calmly at the dim sun. She stopped in her tracks and considered him, her waiting friends momentarily forgotten. He was always alone, even amidst crowds of people. Here, his isolation was even more profound. She felt sorry for him. Whatever distanced him from other people, she felt that nobody should spend lunch time on their own - even detention was better than that. She crossed the wet grass and sat down next to him on the dry pine needles under the tree. His eyes alighted on her briefly, and then pointed forwards again.

"Fancy seeing you here," he said quietly; his voice almost reflective. "Shouldn't you be in room C1, playing with your little friends?"

Emily was used to his antisocial behaviour by now, and ignored it with a swift smile."They can wait," she murmured, not wanting to break the stillness of the misty air around them. "Is this where you hide every lunch time?"

"Don't worry, I'm not that predictable," he grunted. "I go wherever I can avoid the racket all your compatriots like to make every lunch time."

"All on your own? You must get lonely," Emily replied.

"I'm a big boy," he smirked. "I don't need groupies to talk to. I'm just here to get my final year of school over so I can get on with my work."

"What do you mean?" Emily asked.

"Let's just say I have a family business," said Kaiba, his eyes still facing forward. "And I can't take over fully until I've completed High School. I decided to take it in New Zealand to keep out of the public eye for a while."

Emily nodded. That explained a lot about him - his carelessness with school rules, his formal attire, and his attitude - even though she didn't really see why he was afraid to make friends. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to maintain his relationships when he went back to his home country? Which begged the question -

"Where _is _your home country? Your accent is almost impossible to place. Somewhere in Europe, I'm guessing," she asked.

"Interesting guess, but you're about half the world off," he said smugly.

"Really? I can't imagine where you'd be from, then. America?"

Kaiba shook his head.

"Canada?" That would explain his mastery of French. But again, he shook his head, grinning.

"You'll never figure it out. My parents died when I was very young, and I was raised in an orphanage. And whoever my parents were, they definitely weren't locals."

Emily grimaced. "Are you going to make me keep guessing like this, or will you just tell me right now?"

"I'm not telling," he said lightly. "Besides, it's not really important."

"Fine," sniffed Emily. "So you're not going to university?" she asked.

"Of course not. Skills can only be obtained in the real world, by actually doing what you want to learn. They can't just be delivered in some dusty classroom by an old guy who hasn't done the real thing in years. As far as I'm concerned, universities are outdated anyway – you can learn things a thousand times faster by yourself on the internet."

"But going to University is the only way to get a career," replied Emily."It's what you're meant to do when you finish high school so that you can further yourself as a student and gain a greater education so you can get good jobs!"

"That's just what they tell you naive kids so that you'll spend twenty thousand dollars on their worthless education. Your little certificates don't mean squat in the real world – it's real talent that matters."

"I'm taking Art at university next year," said Emily thoughtfully. "For me university isn't just about the degree, it's about the opportunity to be with other artists and learn from the best. I'm sure the lecturers at Uni will know their stuff, otherwise they wouldn't be there."

"If you want to hang out with other artists, you'd be better off starting a club," said Kaiba scornfully. "Save yourself a few bucks in the process. And as for the lecturers – if they had any real talent they wouldn't be stuck working at some lame university teaching kids how to colour between the lines."

"Maybe they want to share their life's work; give something back," said Emily quietly. Convincing though he was, she had had her heart set on studying Art at university for years, and she wasn't going to let a rude boy like Kaiba change her mind just like that!

"Believe what you want," muttered Kaiba.

A fine mist swirled around them. Emily took advantage of the silence between them to get a slice of homemade meat pie from her bag. She chomped at it fiercely while Kaiba chewed petitely at a rice ball he had extracted from a tin in the side-pocket of his laptop bag.

"If you won't tell me where you're from, will you at least tell me more about your company?" she asked suddenly.

Kaiba swallowed pointedly before answering. "It's rude to talk with your mouth full," he said reproachfully.

Emily raised an eyebrow at him and put the rest of her pie into her lunch box. Kaiba wiped his lips on a napkin.

"My company used to belong to my stepfather, who adopted my brother and me when I was nine. I gained a majority share in the company when I was fifteen and took control. I've turned the company from a military research and development corporation into the finest game development company in the world. But at the moment I have to run everything via an intermediary, until I'm legally recognised as an adult – namely, when I complete high school."

"I can't believe you run an entire company," said Emily. "You're only seventeen!"

"You grow up pretty fast in an orphanage," he replied darkly. "And running a business isn't something you take lightly. But... I enjoy it. It's a challenge, and that's the way I like it."

"So that's why you never pay attention in class," Emily mused. "It's not really important to you how well you do."

"That and the fact that I already know all this stuff," huffed Kaiba. "I've studied at the best schools in the world."

"So what made you come here?" asked Emily.

"Product research." He grinned. "I wanted to see what the kids wanted on this side of the world. So I decided to make use of the student exchange system. I pretend to study at this cheap school and avoid distracting study and unnecessary homework, _and _I get to get some work done for my business. It's win-win."

"What do you sell?"

"That'd be telling. Enough about me. Why are you so interested?"

Emily hesitated. "Because... because I like you. You're so different. Maybe a bit of an asshole, and a complete idiot when it comes to women, but interesting nonetheless."

"Well I'm glad I'm such a source of entertainment for you," he muttered. He grabbed his bag and stood up abruptly. "Anyway. I've got somewhere else to be. Smell you later, geek."

He strode off into the mist, leaving dark footprints in the dewy grass. Emily shrugged to herself and smiled. The bell rang, and she headed off to her last class. Kaiba wasn't there.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Monday morning was foreshadowed with dark, forbidding rain. Emily dashed to French class, crouching under her little red umbrella against droplets flung against her forcefully by ferocious gusts of wind. Her bag had developed a rip recently, so she was clutching her folder to her chest with her spare arm. Her hefty maths book slithered out from between the stack inside the folder and thudded moistly to the ground. She grabbed at the cascade of documents that followed, and managed to prevent the rest of the contents of her folder from falling, but dropped her umbrella in the process.

"Shit shit shit," she grated, tucking her papers back into her folder and tucking her sodden maths book under her armpit.

She was late for class. She felt sure that Erica would understand, as they had a very friendly relationship now; now that Emily had gotten to know her better. But Erica wasn't there. Marianna sat behind the teacher's desk with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. All the desks and chairs in the room had been rearranged into a horseshoe-shaped formation, allowing no hiding places for the students to misbehave.

"Take your seat please, Miss Rose, you are ten minutes late," Marianna chirped crisply.

There was only one seat left, in the back corner between Kaiba and Daniel. The former was looking extremely disgruntled about having to sit next to another student. Daniel was clearly slightly intimidated by Kaiba's close presence, and looked relieved when Emily sat between them. Marianna began filling the whiteboard with tedious notes for them to copy; most of it stuff they had already covered. Emily raised her hand.

"Excuse me, Marianna, but we've already studied Present Tense," she piped.

"Present Tense is what is listed in the course curriculum, Miss Rose, so Present Tense is what you will be learning today," replied Marianna crisply. "Unless you want to be the teacher?" she smirked, turning back to her note-writing.

"I'd make a better job of it than you," muttered Emily quietly.

"What was that?"

"Ah, nothing, just borrowing a pencil sharpener," Emily said quickly.

She started writing the notes on the board, but after five minutes, the idiocy of it defeated her. She glanced around her. Some of the students were staring blankly ahead, while others were scribbling hastily, trying to keep up with Marianna's swift pen-hand. Kaiba was quietly reading a book, his notebook untouched. Emily peeked at the title next to the page number. It was Homer's _The Odyssey. _She glanced at Kaiba and caught a peek of his toned chest through the top of his shirt. He looked at her with hot eyes, and she could tell he knew she was checking him out. Suddenly the classroom was quite empty apart from the two of them.

"Looks like we have the place to ourselves," said Kaiba huskily. He kissed her hard on the neck.

"Alright class!" screeched Marianna, breaking into her daydream. "Let's see how everyone is doing, shall we?"

Marianna began inspecting the student's notes. Emily quickly smoothed the top leaves of her notebook, which had somehow become scrunched up. She hastily began trying to catch up with all the notes that she hadn't written.

"Where are your notes, Mister Kaiba?" said Marianna's voice triumphantly.

"Sorry miss, but I felt no need to copy these notes, as I already have them, back home in my intermediate schoolbooks. I won't be needing them as a study reference since I've already learned them."

"I'm afraid you don't have the liberty of picking and choosing which classes to pay attention to, Mister Kaiba," replied Marianna silkily. "Perhaps in your own country you do things differently, but here we do as we're told."

"But Marianna, he's right, we did these things in our first year here!" said Emily hotly.

"Yeah! She's right!" shouted a few of her classmates.

"I can tell you what were currently studying-" started Emily.

"ENOUGH!" barked Marianna. "You, Emily, and you, Seto, go out of the room and wait outside. The rest of you, back to taking notes!"

Emily stalked out of the room in a rage, shoving her notes into her folder and her pencil case under her arm as she went. Kaiba appeared next to her a moment later and closed the classroom door quietly behind him.

"You forgot your goldfish's reading material," he said, passing her her sodden maths book.

"Oh, thanks, it fell in a puddle this morning," she breathed. She really wasn't used to this whole "getting in trouble" thing, but his presence calmed her somewhat.

"I don't mind if you don't get _her _flowers," she muttered, recalling the last time she'd been sent out of French class.

Kaiba grinned wolfishly. "She might appreciate the subtleties of the poison ivy blossom," he joked. "Or maybe Hemlock."

"I don't think Hemlock grows in New Zealand," said Emily, giggling. After a moment's thought, she whispered, "So how much trouble do you think we're in?"

"Who cares?" he said, opening his book again. "Any punishment is preferable to sitting in that class writing crap I've known since I was ten."

"Mmmm," Emily murmured. She shuffled against him and craned over to read with him. It was _The Odyssey _after all. She shuddered at the thought of her daydream. Still, he wasn't bad-looking... The cold, draughty corridor faded away as they became absorbed into Homer's epic saga.

So ensconced in the book were they, that neither of them noticed when the bell rang, looking up only when students started jostling past them through the corridor.

"I suppose I should go to my next class," said Emily wistfully.

"Unless you want to spend another class reading in a corridor with me?" Kaiba suggested wryly.

Emily looked up at him, smiling genuinely. "Thanks for the offer, but I try not to make a habit of being kicked out of class more than once in a day. Though I'm certainly not going back into French class to listen to another of Marianna's rants."

This time, for once, Emily was the one to walk off, leaving a bemused Kaiba propped against the wall, his eyes still on the book.

True to her word, the next three classes passed normally. When she recounted the morning's events to her friends at lunch time, having stayed to discuss the meaning of the Mona Lisa with her art history teacher all throughout morning tea, they were surprised that she had not cowered to Marianna's will.

"Why should I bend over to a deluded control freak of a teacher who doesn't know more than the present tense in French? I'm not going to waste my time learning crap anymore."

"You didn't complain this much last year when she relieved us for English." Her friend Jo said.

"It's because last year, she didn't have the pleasure of knowing _Mr Seto Kaiba,_" David piped up.

"It's got nothing to do with Kaiba!" Emily said huffily, blushing slightly as she remembered her daydream.

"Why are you blushing then?" said David laughing

"I-I'm not! I stood up to Marianna because I knew she was wrong, not because of Kaiba or anyone else."

All of her friends were grinning at her now, David and Jo were both laughing uproariously. Emily glared daggers at them, picked up her things and stalked out of the room.

She walked huffily around the school, unconsciously gravitating towards Kaiba's usual lunch-time spot. Before she could reach it, the bell rang, so she turned on her heel and walked sullenly to Painting.

Throughout Painting she was very introspective; Kaiba hadn't changed her that much, surely. Her friends were just teasing. Despite her outburst previously, she wasn't sure about her feelings, or intentions towards _him_. Immersed in these thoughts, she lost herself in her art.

The next morning Emily arrived well equipped for the weather, in a turquoise ankle-length raincoat. Many of the younger students sniggered as she strode purposefully towards IT, but she didn't care; she was warm and dry, unlike the sodden rat looking students trying to shelter under their folders.

Kaiba was already in IT, sitting in his usual place in the back, still reading _The Odyssey_, though he was considerably further into it than he had been yesterday. Upon hearing her chipper voice greeting Malcolm, he looked up for a moment, and smiled slightly, looking back down before Emily looked his way.

Emily plonked herself down next to Kaiba, a smile alighting on her face as she noticed the book.

"Still haven't finished it then?"

"Clearly not. Some of us have more than more to do when they get home than just play video games."

Malcolm's voice boomed throughout the classroom before Emily had a chance to respond.

"Alright class, today we are going to build some websites! I want to see something a bit cleverer than marquees, alright? Make something that you can be proud of."

Emily booted her computer up immediately and logged into her home folder. She liked coding websites, but she'd never really studied it in depth. Infotech was quite a general subject at Titirangi High School.

"Your page looks pretty cheap," said Kaiba, looking up briefly from his book.

"I'm trying to get two columns side-by-side, but there's nothing in the notes about it..." said Emily frustratedly.

"Use CSS," replied Kaiba, reading again. "Google it."

"What's CSS?"

Kaiba put his book down. "Here, I'll show you. You've probably been wasting heaps of time..."

The classroom door opened, and a teacher came in and had a brief, muttered conversation with Malcolm before coming up to Emily and Kaiba and saying:

"Emily Rose? Seto Kaiba? You must come to the Principal's Office immediately."

"What for?" gasped Emily.

"Apparently you've been skipping detention. Come on now, the Principal is waiting."

Emily looked exasperatedly at Kaiba, whose expression had become decidedly stony. She shut down her computer and gathered her things, while Kaiba huffily snapped his laptop shut.

They walked swiftly to the office block, eliciting odd glances from teachers whom they passed. As they passed the front desk, Mrs Steiner looked confused to see them there; being frog marched by Mr Jones.

"In you go," Mr Jones said gruffly.

Emily and Kaiba's outrage of being dragged to the principal's office was tangible now as they walked in. Emily grimaced; Marianna was sitting next to the principal, looking decidedly pleased with herself.

Kaiba was the first to speak.

"What is this nonsense about us missing detention?" He said coldly.

Marianna sized Kaiba up.

"Well Seto-"

"Call me Kaiba."

"Well Mister Kaiba," she simpered, "You and Miss Rose missed the detention I gave you both yesterday for your appalling outburst in French, and its school policy that if you miss a detention, you get suspended."

"That's utter bullshit!" Emily exclaimed loudly. "We missed no such detention because you didn't give us one. You just sent us out of the class and forgot about us for the rest of the class."

Principal Stewart spoke up now.

"There's no reason to use that kind of language Miss Rose. If Marianna says that she gave you both detention and you didn't go, I believe her."

"Have you even asked her what we did in the first place?" Kaiba said acidly.

"Marianna informs me that you were disobedient, continually ignored her instructions, and were swearing in class."

"That's a bit of an overstatement," muttered Kaiba. "We merely informed her that we had already covered the course content she was instructing us to take notes on."

"Young man, that trick is played all the time when classes are being relieved by other teachers. You two children have behaved disgracefully, and I have no hesitation in suspending you both until Thursday. Your parents will be contacted and you will be taken home as soon as possible. Until then you will sit here and keep as quiet as mice! Marianna, let's go get a coffee."

Marianna and Stewart left the room. Emily began to cry. Kaiba patted her back vaguely, and then began reading again, looking thoughtful.


	5. Chapter 5

The usual disclaimer, we've borrowed a couple of characters ish, and the rest is ours. Apologies once more for the long time it's taken to update, but on the plus side, it's almost 4k words!

* * *

**Chapter Five**

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Emily's mother was appalled when she arrived to pick her up, and treated her to several outraged tirades on the way home. Emily numbly endured this, and when her father arrived home later that afternoon there was more to come. At the first opportunity she dashed to her bedroom, where she curled up in her bed and cried even more. Her parents didn't believe her side of the story in the slightest, and the injustice of it all prevented her from getting to sleep for a long time. The next morning she was woken unceremoniously by her mother, who informed her testily that she wasn't to leave the house under any circumstances, and she was grounded for the week. Emily assented in a small voice, and tried to sleep for a few more hours.

At nine o'clock, her stomach began complaining at the lack of breakfast, so she clambered out of bed and went to the kitchen to make toast. She put the bread in the toaster and stared morosely out of the window. The weather was offensively nice; not extremely warm but pleasantly sunny and dry. There were no cars on the road, and no people walking around. She existed in a strange, desolate world, one that only she occupied. A terrifying urban purgatory. Her toast popped up, flung so energetically that one piece bounced onto the table. She covered the slices with hazelnut spread and resumed her post at the window. She peered through the curtains again. A strange car had just pulled up outside her house. Emily looked closer, and almost dropped her plate. A Lamborghini? In this neighbourhood? She put her plate down and dashed to the front door to get a better look. She gasped. It _was _a Lamborgini. Sleek and black, it hugged the road with a commanding aura of expensiveness and power. The passenger door slid outwards, and then rose up over the car's roof. Seto Kaiba leaned out.

"Wanna come for a ride?" he asked. It was almost a statement.

"Ub-bu-bub, buh, ah, eh...!" Emily babbled. What was _he _doing here? In that _car! _"M-my parents, th-they said I can't go out..."

"I'll get you home before they get back from work. C'mon. Humour me."

"I... I'll need to get dressed properly..." she stammered.

"Alright. But don't take your time – this offer is only available for the next five minutes," he smirked.

She sprinted back inside to her bedroom and began casting about for her jeans and her jacket. She yanked open her drawers and began throwing clothes onto the floor. She found some pants and threw them on and began digging for her keys. Her jacket was still missing. She began to panic when she heard some ferocious revving coming from outside, and toppled the washing basket on her floor and began to dig furiously into it. She found her cream-coloured coat, and flew out the front door, her arm only in one sleeve as she fumbled with the lock. She slid into the car, almost hitting her head on the low roof, panting and out of breath. The door closed slickly after her.

"How, long, did, I take?" she gasped.

"That was about forty seconds, actually. You are so gullible – like I'd drive all the way here and leave you behind," Kaiba sniggered.

"You bastard!" she panted, punching him on the arm.

"Allow me to make it up to you," he smirked. "Croissant? They're fresh-baked." He pushed a tray into her lap and put the car into first gear. She munched gratefully on the food he'd given her, which was of astounding quality.

"Where did you get these?" she asked him. "And where are we going?"

"Let's just say I know a French chef. In fact, he lives with me. Guy named Jacques. He was working in some lousy restaurant here, but when I saw what he could do, I hired him on the spot." He laughed. "And as for where we're going... that's a surprise."

Emily sipped at a thermos flask full of hot chocolate.

"My god, this is delicious!" she breathed. Kaiba just grinned as he drove.

"So, I'm guessing by this car that your business does rather well," she stated. "It must be nice not to have anyone that can tell you to stay home all day. My parents completely believed Marianna's story. Parents can be such idiots sometimes!"

"Guess I'm better off then, huh?" said Kaiba wryly.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that," said Emily hastily. "It's just that, even though I'm their own daughter, my parents don't seem to think my opinions are very important."

Kaiba grunted noncommittally. They were driving along a narrow rural road, with trees forming a latticed roof above them. The glorious colours of autumn were everywhere, and although the world was still devoid of life outside, inside there was life enough. Even when she was in the worst of troubles, Kaiba made her feel safe.

Three croissants and a narrow side road later, Kaiba turned down an even narrower dirt one, which led down the hill.

"I seem to keep landing you in trouble; or at least opportunities for your big mouth to get the better of you," Kaiba said evenly. "So consider this in the way of an apology."

He parked the car and without glancing behind him to see if she was following him, stalked off into the trees. She followed him hurriedly. She found him near the edge of a beautiful sea-side cliff, with ancient straggling pohutakawa trees and ferns forming a loose shelter against the light spitting rain. Big gnarled roots twisted and turned through the dry dirt floor, and birds twittered and called at each other and swooped through the treetops. And the view was astounding. Hundreds of metres below them, the grey sea raged in a constant battle against the land, its dull roar audible even from this height.

"Wow, Seto, this place, it's beautiful!" Emily squeaked.

"Wait here for a moment," said Kaiba, heading back towards his car.

Emily waited on tenterhooks. She imagined he was getting chocolates, or a picnic, or something equally romantic. But what he got her was even better.

"An easel?" she asked, surprised, and suddenly overwhelmed by appreciation.

"And a few canvases, and a paint box. Knock yourself out. I've gotta check my emails."

"Out here? How?" said Emily, opening the paint-box. The lid slid backwards and a row of trays extended outwards. There were brushes of all different sizes, as well as a sturdy paint palette and rows of different paints in all kinds of colours.

"Satellite internet. I got it after that melt-down at your school. And I have my laptop, of course," shrugged Kaiba. He sat down cross-legged in the nook of a pair of large tree roots and opened his laptop.

"Seto, this is wonderful. Thank you so much," said Emily appreciatively.

Kaiba didn't reply, but she could see a slight smile in his otherwise focused expression. Emily placed a canvas on the easel and began mixing colours. A sharp zephyr rustled the leaves above her and chilled the air. Nature's proud strength and beauty captivated her and ignited her passion for painting. There wasn't a better gift in the entire world that anyone could have given her, and it had been given to her by a guy she'd only known for three months or so. How was it that he knew her better than any of her friends, or her parents, even? She turned the easel slightly so that it faced outwards towards the horizon and began daubing the growing clouds forming above the sea.

The painting was about half-finished when a raindrop splattered on Kaiba's knee, prompting him to close his laptop hastily.

"It's about time we left; it's nearly one o'clock," he said.

By the time they had managed to carefully place Emily's painting in the car, the rain was bucketing down. They slid gratefully into the Lamborghini's warm leather embrace and turned the heater on.

"You hungry?" asked Kaiba.

"Starving!" Emily replied.

"We'll go back to my place. It's closer."

They cruised effortlessly through the winding country lanes, windscreen wipers dashing back and forth as quickly as they were able.

"How did you know where I live?" asked Emily suddenly. "We're not in the phone book."

"I've known for ages. I hacked the school's records and found out all your details. Including your test scores." He smirked. "Almost as good as mine."

"Almost?" Emily retorted "Don't pat yourself on the back just yet, you're hardly Mr Perfect."

"Are you sure about that?" Kaiba asked smugly.

Emily looked at his smirk, and started laughing wildly, tears pouring down her cheeks.

"And here I was thinking you could't get any more conceited!" she giggled.

By means of reply, Kaiba wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left, and the Lamborghini barrelled down a partially-concealed driveway. The driveway was an insanely steep slope, typical of rural Auckland, but the car cruised up it effortlessly. There was a sudden flare of light as they exited the deep trees. Kaiba parked the car carelessly outside a large, modern-looking house. One of the exterior walls was half made of glass, and Emily could tell that from this height, the views would be incredible.

"I'm not one to let people pry and poke around my house, so I thought we could just have lunch in the back," he said quietly. "I'll just go let Jacques know we're here. Follow that path over there to get 'round the back."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked off towards the front door. Emily got out of the car carefully, feeling slightly off-balance after Kaiba's nonchalant attitude towards speed limits. She awkwardly reached up to pull shut the Laborghini's gull-wing passenger door, absurdly aware that the tall Kaiba wouldn't have thought twice about it. She put her coat on and walked around the side of the house, past a beautiful little vegetable garden and a great deal of native bush before she finally arrived at the back of the house. Here, surrounded by walls of ivy-clad trellis, was an expanse of grass with a rustic picnic table planted firmly against a solid wooden barrier. Beyond this, the land fell sharply away; they were on a cliffside that commanded a wonderful view of the surrounding forest and the distant harbour. Even the muted sun, masked by reams of cloud, seemed to smile benevolently upon the beautiful vista. A small boy with long black hair was painting abstractly upon a large sheaf of paper, which he had to keep his spare fist firmly upon to prevent it being snatched away by sudden winds. He looked so content that, at first, Emily didn't want to interrupt him. However, curiousity soon got the better of her.

"Hello there!" she said in the most friendly way possible. She wasn't sure _what_ kind of company to expect at the home of Seto Kaiba, so she decided to go for as harmless an approach as possible. "What's your name?"

"I'm Mokuba Kaiba," replied the boy, wide-eyed. "Who're you?"

"I'm Emily Rose, a friend of K... Seto's," she replied, realising almost too late that this boy must be one of Kaiba's relations.

"Nice to meet you!" squeaked Mokuba. Then his face darkened slightly. "Does that mean Seto is home now?" he asked.

"Er, yes, he's just inside getting something to eat," she replied.

"Oh well, back to maths homework for me," said Mokuba, folding his artwork up carefully and opening up an exercise book.

"Are you going to a school in New Zealand?" Emily asked, hovering, unsure if he would mind if she sat down next to him.

"No, my big brother said I should do correspondence instead, so that I'd stay in pace with the schools back home. I was kinda looking forward to taking it easy for a while," he grinned bashfully.

"Where exactly is..." began Emily, hoping to cunningly extract the location of Seto's home country.

She was cut short by Kaiba shouting, "Mokubaaaaaaaaaa...!"

Foiled again! She turned to see Seto striding towards them, a large plate of food balanced on his right palm. Mokuba dashed towards him and hugged him joyously. Kaiba maintained his balance and kept the dish of food suspended as he accepted the gesture mutely, his face expressionless. However, Emily reflected, knowing Kaiba, that was probably how he expressed affection. She couldn't imagine him letting anyone else squeeze him so fondly. She chuckled to herself.

"Is the new device finished yet, 'bro?" Mokuba asked Kaiba.

"We have a guest, Mokuba," said Kaiba severely. "Don't talk about that stuff. Although if you do your homework... I might let you try out the prototype."

"YEAHHH! ALL RIGHT 'BRO!" shouted Mokuba. He dashed inside, slamming the door behind him.

"Now that we have some peace," Kaiba said aloofly, placing the dish on the table, "can I interest you in some quiches?"

There was also a small selection of French cheeses, salmon, and thin bagel slices. It was at least mid-afternoon, and Emily felt famished, but she decided to pace herself this time. Food this fine had to be appreciated slowly. Kaiba seemed to approve of her table manners this time – or at least he didn't scold her for talking with her mouth full this time. She looked at him from under her eyelashes. He seemed distracted, and slightly ill at ease. Emily decided to point out the obvious.

"You... don't entertain a lot, do you?" she piped up.

He smiled ruefully. "You noticed, huh?"

"Just a little." She smiled and changed the subject.

They chatted for hours; the conversation changing tack rapidly and subjects ranging wildly. Emily talked a lot about her family, while Kaiba dropped more hints about what technologies his company was developing. Emily noticed Mokuba peeping out of the window from time to time and felt abashed that she was perhaps intruding upon the brother's family time. It was only when the sun nestled upon the top of the nearby hills that they realised how much time had passed.

"Is it just me, or is it cold all of a sudden?" said Emily, shivering and clutching her shoulders.

"Huh. It's five thirty already," muttered Kaiba, glancing briefly at an antique pocket-watch he had pulled out of his jacket. Emily glanced at it with interest, but then balked when she realised the implications of his words.

"Oh crap, I was supposed to be home hours ago! My parents told me I wasn't allowed to go anywhere today. Oh crap oh crap oh crap..." she fretted.

"Relax," said Kaiba stoicly. "I'll think of a good excuse. All I need is the right jacket. And a nametag. You go wait in the car. I'll be right back." He dashed back towards the house.

Ten minutes later they were in front of Emily's house. The shadows were lengthening, and the sun was almost entirely down. She noted with a twinge of terror that both her parent's cars were parked in the carport. She looked at Kaiba.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" she asked.

"Sure it'll work. And if it doesn't, what's the worst that could happen?" he said carelessly.

Emily could think of several scenarios, but decided not to mention them. She figured that it wasn't in her best interests to cause him to lose his cool. They walked up to the front door. Kaiba extended his arm and rapped smartly on the door, ignoring the cheap doorbell nearby. Emily heard the sound of her father's feet thumping impatiently towards the door, which opened soon afterward. Emily's father stood before them. She could almost feel the rage emanating from him.

"Where have you been? You were supposed to stay at home all day, young lady!"

"Allow me to explain," said Kaiba smoothly. He had oiled his hair and slicked it to one side and donned a suitably shabby suit and tie. He had a nametag pinned to his breast pocket which proclaimed him to be a Michael Briars, student teacher, currently studying at Auckland University. It was a relatively convincing imitation of the original, as much as his garb and general manner was almost perfectly the same as the actual Michael Briars.

"I must apologise for this, Mr Rose. Did you not see my note?"

"Note? What note!" said Emily's father distractedly.

"I left a note under the door, but I assume it must have been blown away by the wind," said Kaiba in a studious tone. "Emily wasn't here today because our chess team would have been one short at the national tournament today, and unfortunately they don't allow teams to enter if they don't meet the minimum team requirements. It wouldn't have been fair to the other students if they had to miss out because of Marianna's mistake. We didn't win this year, but we came fourth, which is pretty good for such a small school! You'll be proud to hear that Emily won nine out of ten rounds."

"Hang on, hang on, what's this about Marianna?" asked Emily's dad. He was looking more and more confused.

"Oh, it turns out that she was in the wrong about Emily and the other student involved. Apparently Marianna has recently suffered a loss in her family and possibly acted out of grief. The other students say she's been acting erratically for over a week now."

"Oh... that's such a relief," smiled Mr Rose tiredly. "I knew it must have been some sort of mistake. My little girl has never gotten into trouble before, have you darling?" He patted Emily's shoulder fondly.

"Here, why don't you come in and have a cup of tea, Mr... er," he squinted at Kaiba's nametag. "Briars! I want to hear more about this chess match."

"I'm afraid I am already late for my dinner, Mr Rose, but it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance," said Kaiba, leaning forward to shake Emily's fathers hand firmly, and making his departure, leaving Emily alone on the doorstep with her father.

"Well! He was a nice fellow! Student teacher, eh?" remarked Emily's dad cordially.

"Yeah - oh, I've left my bag in his car," said Emily suddenly. "Back in a sec, dad!"

"Alright, but hurry up, your dinner's on the table!" he called after her.

Kaiba was parked around the corner. Even Auckland Uni students didn't own lamborghinis. He was slouching against it smugly, waiting for her, when she arrived.

"So, how d'you think it went?" he smirked.

"Seto... you are the most brilliant con-artist I have ever met!" she exclaimed. "But what happens if my parents meet the real Michael Briars? Or if they ask about the chess tournament? And what's all this about Marianna?"

"It's been half a year now, and I've never once seen your parents at school," he replied. "Not even when we received that award for school services after we fixed the school's server. If they're consistent, they won't find out. You said it yourself – they're satisfied as long as you seem to be doing well."

"Mmmm, I guess you're right," said Emily, hefting her bag onto her shoulders. She prodded his nametag. "You drew that awfully fast."

"I made it a few months ago. I was dying for a coffee, so I drew it up on my laptop and used it to gain entry into the staff room."

Emily laughed uproariously. "That is so YOU!"

Kaiba looked defensive. "It was the logical thing to do."

Emily smiled and took a few steps away from the car. She turned to face him again. "Thank you, Seto. Today... meant a lot to me. It would have been so terrible if you hadn't shown up."

"It was nothing," he said quietly. His hair had fallen over his eyes, and the light from the street lamp cast a shadow over his face. "Oh yeah, you almost forgot your painting." Kaiba reached behind the driver's seat of his car and withdrew Emily's artwork deftly.

She hugged him suddenly. She was simply overwhelmed with emotion.

"Goodnight, Seto." She walked off into the darkness.

"Yeah... see ya," he replied. He stood there for a while, his face inscrutable. Then he got in his car and drove away.

* * *

**Author's Note: **In the process of getting over the writer's block for this chapter, there have been a few... bloopers. We've included them below for you to enjoy! Let us know in a comment if you like us adding the bloopers in, or whether you think it impacts upon the seriousness of the story.

**Bloopers section.**

There was also a small selection of French cheeses, salmon, and thin bagel slices. It was at least mid-afternoon, and Emily felt famished, but she decided to pace herself this time. Food this fine had to be appreciated slowly. Kaiba regurgitated his food into Mokuba's mouth and ignored him calmly when he squawked and danced around the nest begging for more. She put caps lock on and shouted in his ear "WAKE UP ASSHOLE" and he held shift down for a moment and said "DAMMIT I can hear u" and she was like "learn to spell jackwad" and he was like "wtf is a jackwad" and she replied "it's like the latest thing" and showed him one. He shat bricks and then they built a pyramid out of them. The END.

"Just a little." She smiled and changed the subject. "Your little brother is a f*cking midget!"

"Relax," said Kaiba stoicly. "I'll think of a good excuse. All I need is the right jacket. And a nametag. You go wait in the car. I'll be right back."

He teleported back to the house. Emily used the escalator to get back to the car. Mokuba hopped along beside her, distributing moonrocks randomly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **Many thanks to **Kiski** who gave us the prod we needed to finish this chapter. We'll try to update at a decent frequency now, time to get back into the routine! A few reviews and or comments wouldn't hurt that process though, just saying. It's nice to feel loved. And on that note, mischiefmagnet and Regsd, you get some love here now for having reviewed us before too! Huzzah! Lastly in my rambles, the duels and cards we describe are true to the actual card game, we encourage you to wikia the cards - some of them are really cute!

* * *

**Chapter Six **

Equiped with her raincoat and large handbag, Emily entered her favourite coffee shop and waved at the waitress. It was the middle of the school holidays, and coincidentally, it was also Emily's birthday. None of her friends or family had spoken to her about what she wanted to do for her birthday. Strangely, she felt almost empowered by the fact that she didn't feel the need to celebrate her birthday in the normal fashion. After trying to get Kaiba to go to town with her for 5 months, she felt like she was, at least, getting one thing she wanted for her birthday.

Kaiba walked into the coffee shop, humming something that sounded suspiciously like "Waltzing Matilda". Emily raised a pointed eyebrow at him.

"What?" he asked grouchily. "I lived in Australia for a few months, okay?"

He regained his composure rapidly. "So what exactly are we doing in this dump, anyway?"

"Well I know it's not what you're _used_ to," retorted Emily. "But they make the best fluffies in town!"

"_Fluffies_?" said Kaiba . "What the hell is a _fluffy_?"

"They're just frothed milk with chocolate sprinkles, basically. They're not on the menu. I just ask for them because, well, I like frothed milk and chocolate!" Emily beamed.

"I don't know why I hang out with you. You're like a five-year-old," he grunted.

"Don't mock them 'til you've tried them! Are you ready for your tour of Auckland City?"

"I'm sure I didn't actually agree to this," replied Kaiba. "Just remember I've got a Duel Monsters tournament I want to watch at three. So no goddamn shoe shopping."

Emily contrived to look hurt. "I was only going to take you to the Waterfront and up the Skytower. This is the third tournament you've been to these holidays – and yet you haven't even entered one! Why is that?"

"I'm just sizing up the local talent. There are a few up-and-comers, but nobody anywhere _near_ my level. I don't duel with amateurs."

"I didn't realise you took this whole card thing so seriously," said Emily.

A waitress arrived at their table and placed two steaming takeaway cups in front of them.

"Hey Emily!" said the girl. "Two fluffies. Enjoy."

"Thank you Lara!" said Emily. She turned back to Kaiba. "Here, take yours, and let's go have them by the sea," she said, pushing one of the drinks towards Kaiba and hefting her bag onto her shoulder.

They wandered down the road, which was gleaming wetly in the sun. The weather was surprisingly good considering it was the middle of winter, but it had rained briefly while they were inside the cafe.

"Do you like your fluffy?"

"Tastes like milk. Why are you carrying such a huge bag?"

"Oh! It's because I've got my yearbook in it. And a few other things..." She tugged the strap of her oversize handbag, which had been slipping off her shoulder.

"I thought they didn't give those out until the end of the year."

"I helped them design them this year, so I got to get one early," said Emily smugly. "I've added a few extra pages to it. I want to get absolutely _everyone's _signatures – even the teacher's!"

"Had you told me that before I knew you, I'd be surprised." said Kaiba.

"Will you sign it first?"

"Nope. Now, why won't you let me teach you Duel Monsters?"

"I'm just not into that kinda thing. It seems too nerdy - even for me! Besides, there aren't any other women who play the game - I'd be surrounded by nerdy boys all the time."

"And that would be different, how?"

Emily grinned at Kaiba, changing the subject quickly.

"Why have you stopped playing chess with me? Got sick of losing?"

"Technically it was a draw. And if you'll recall, I destroyed you the game before."

"That's because you hid my knight when I went to get snacks."

"Don't be sore - I put it back."

"Yeah, only after I saw you holding it behind your back!"

Kaiba shrugged.

"So, why haven't you played with me since then? Afraid a girl will keep beating you?" Emily said loftily.

This time it was Kaiba who changed the subject, not meeting Emily's eyes.

"I still can't believe that your parents didn't recognise me. _Are they on drugs or something?_ You must be some throwback in the line, or else I'd beat you all the time."

"I'll take that as a compliment. It's not as though they could see you that well when you dropped me off before though, it was dark."

"But still, I've picked you up five or six times now, and they haven't even noticed the Lamborghini."

"They've never really been into cars. What can I say? You're the master of disguising your wealth in the most obvious way possible."

Kaiba smirked broadly. "You've never complained before. Now, where are we going? The tournament starts in three hours and counting."

"Well if you look ahead rather than at me, you'll notice we've reached the waterfront. On the right is the ferry building. It's one of the places that the tourists like to visit."

"I don't see what's so special about it."

"It's part of Auckland's heritage. New Zealand has only been colonised for about 150 years, so we don't have anything spectacularly ancient. We've only got old buildings that we hope foreigners will appreciate." Emily contrived to look hurt.

"So, no seriously old stuff. And I haven't noticed any high technology, either. So what _does _New Zealand have?"

"New Zealand has... well, I guess it has secret places. Places where you can be alone. Beautiful places. Like the place you took me to when we were suspended..."

Emily looked up at Kaiba. He was looking resolutely at the ocean.

"That was a nice time. I've almost finished the painting, you know."

Kaiba nodded solemnly. Emily sighed, not altogether unhappily, and looked at the waves with him. Presently, the moment passed, and they both began walking back towards town.

And there they were at the tournament. Emily wasn't quite sure how they'd ended up there, or how the afternoon had passed so quickly; it wasn't so much that Kaiba had _convinced_ her, it was merely the supposition that Kaiba expected her to come, along with the fact that she wanted to find out more about this game - which seemed to be the only activity performed by his age group that Kaiba actually partook. So far it seemed strangely childish of him to be interested in a card game. But as she looked over the crowd of assorted teens, she realised that this pasttime of his was quite a big deal. There were quite a few people here; a broad spectrum of teenagers, some as young as 12 and 13, others in fact, looked like adults. Emily scoffed. "Grownups playing a children's card game?" she thought. She almost said it, but decided this would probably offend Kaiba. All in all, it was quite noisy and hot, and as she expected females were in the minority, particularly amongst those playing already.

"Looks like the tournament's already started."

"Seto, they're all looking at me." said Emily nervously.

This wasn't exactly true. Most of the players were too engrossed in the game to notice the two new arrivals, but a group of tournament officials standing near the door were certainly casting mocking looks in their direction.

Kaiba glanced carelessly towards them. One of the group, a belligerent boy of about seventeen with a nose that looked like an eggplant strode boldly up to Kaiba.

"I've already finished my duel this round," he said smugly. "The kid was a pushover. You must be that Kaiba guy everyone's talking about. The name's Wesley. I'm gonna win this tourney!"

"Good for you," said Kaiba condescendingly.

"Too bad you only like to _watch_, Kaiba. Ah, sounds like the bell for the next round. Excuse me, I got more newbies to waste. Have fun with your _girl_friend, Kaiba!" Wesley strutted off into the crowd, sniggering.

"What a nice guy," muttered Emily.

"Looks, personality, he's the whole package," agreed Kaiba sarcastically. "Let's go watch some games."

They perched behind two players who were throwing down their cards fiercely and trash-talking all the while. It certainly looked quite a bit more energetic than chess.

"The purple cards are trap cards," explained Kaiba. "They can be activated during the opponent's turn to give them a few surprises. The green cards are spells, which are used to bend the rules and gain tactical advantages. The yellow and orange cards are monster cards."

"Why are the monsters different colours?" asked Emily.

"The orange ones have magical effects of their own," said Kaiba. "Effect monsters are like a combination of monster and spell. Generally their offensive and defensive powers are not as high as Normal monsters, but they're nearly always worth it."

Emily watched the game. It was definitely more complicated than she had thought.

"Why is that guy reducing his _own_ life points? I thought you were supposed to reduce your opponent's life points!" she griped.

The player in question grinned smugly. His opponent, brow wrinkled, opted for an attack on his enemy's empty field, and seemed surprised when his opponent took the attack fully, not choosing to play any defensive traps. His life points were low, being now at 900.

"Just watch," whispered Kaiba.

The losing player drew a card, and his grin widened.

"Time to end this! I summon Jowgen the Spiritualist! Now, I activate The Last Turn, and I select Jowgen as my final monster!"

The players swept their fields clean, except for Jowgen. The other player looked confused.

"But I can now choose any monster from my deck to battle your Jowgen. You're finished!"

"Wrong." Kaiba tapped the boy on his shoulder. "The Last Turn forces both of you to perform a final battle, him with his only monster on the field, and you, by special summoning any monster from your deck to fight. The player with a monster remaining after the battle is automatically the winner. But here's the catch - no monsters can be special summoned while Jowgen is on the field. Which means _you're _finished - Jowgen is the last monster standing by default!"

"You're kidding me!" said the player, picking up the other player's monster and scanning the card text furiously. "Geez, and all that time, I thought I was winning!"

He scooped up his cards and dropped them into his pocket, and then gave his opponent a firm handshake.

"Best duel I've had in ages - even though I got my arse handed to me."

"Same here," said his opponent. They both walked off to present their scores to the judges.

Emily was deeply impressed.

"That was..." she shook her head. "I don't know how to describe it!"

"Pretty cool, huh?" said Kaiba. "There are certainly more ways to win than brute strength."

They wandered over to another game in progress.

"I think I'm beginning to like this game," said Emily, as they watched a chubby nerd cackling as he summoned a massive squadron of robots to his field. "Are there any cute girl monsters?" she grinned.

"Sure, I guess," said Kaiba distractedly. "I don't think you'll see many around here, though. I probably have some in my spares you can have."

Emily bounced with delight. "Thanks, Seto!"

"Don't call me Seto," he replied half-heartedly.

The tournament was in the final rounds. Kaiba, uninterested in the few players still standing, instead sat down at a table near the corner and opened up his briefcase. It was full almost to the brim with duel monster cards. It was the first time Emily had actually seen inside it.

"Is this your deck?" asked Emily, picking up a large stack of cards.

"No, most decks only contain about forty cards," Kaiba explained. "Besides, this whole briefcase is just for spares and stuff I might be able to trade. Trading is more fun than just paying for cards, in my opinion. My deck's at home, in case you were wondering. "

"...And we have a winner!" A loud voice in the background announced, amidst a sudden surge in noise as the defeated duelists cheered for their champion. Emily glanced up from a pile of fairy cards she was sorting (in order of cuteness) to see the unlikeable boy from earlier smugly accepting an impressive-looking selection of prizes. Emily ignored the ruckus and presented her findings to Kaiba for his inspection.

"What do you think; will this make a good deck?"

Kaiba flicked through the cards. "Pretty weak monsters," he mused. "But that doesn't mean it'll be a weak deck. I can think of a few spells and traps that would help..." he continued, rummaging in his briefcase. Behind him, the mis-shapen form of Wesley loomed, followed by a small group of his friends.

"Kids these days just don't know how to duel," he gloated. "What's this, the great Seto Kaiba playing with GIRL cards? I never thought I'd see the day!"

His cronies snickered appreciatively.

Kaiba's index finger twitched. "None of your business, _Wesley_."

"Too good to duel here, aren't you, Kaiba? I'd challenge you to a duel, Kaiba, but it looks like you're too busy with your _date_!"

"She's just a friend, _pal_. Besides, I don't duel kids."

"Oh yeah, tough guy? I beat all these kids here, and I could beat you any day."

"Fine," said Kaiba, closing his briefcase with a snap. "Emily, do you mind?"

"Not at all," said Emily, getting up and moving around to his side of the table.

Wesley smirked and sat down opposite Kaiba with a grunt.

"I thought you left your deck behind?" Emily whispered to Kaiba.

Kaiba grinned ferociously, taking Emily aback. "I did."

The duel began. Kaiba's opening move was to play The Swords of Revealing Light, and place a monster face down on the field. Wesley seemed unimpressed and began summoning powerful monsters, but was stymied by the swords' attack-preventing ability. Kaiba responded by placing more monsters face-down and another card face-down next to the Swords card. Eventually the power of the swords was exhausted, and Wesley finally had his chance to attack Kaiba's mystery monsters.

"Prepare to get wiped out, Kaiba! I attack with my Opticlops!"

"Great job, you took down my Hourglass of Life," said Kaiba wryly.

"Hourglass of Life? You're actually playing with those useless cards? Hahahaha!" said Wesley loudly. "I'm gonna wipe you out! I attack the rest of your weak girl cards!"

Wesley's fiends tore through the weak fairies. Emily gasped, this wasn't what she expected from Kaiba at all. Even with her limited experience, she could see that Wesley's monsters were considerably more powerful cards. In one fell swoop all Kaiba's defences were gone, while Wesley's field boasted a menacing selection of monsters with high attack points.

"I place this card face-down and end my turn, Kaiba! Next turn I'm gonna finish you off!"

"Just before you do," said Kaiba, revealing his face-down card, "I activate this card: Human-Wave Tactics. It allows me to special summon a replacement monster from my deck for every two-star monster destroyed and the end of every turn."

He flicked through his deck swiftly. "How about a couple of Mystical Shine Balls and another Hourglass of Life?" he said, placing the monsters on the field.

"Woo!" squeaked Emily.

Kaiba smirked. "You won't beat me so easily, Wesley. The contents of my briefcase say I win within six turns." He drew a card and grinned.

"I'll give you my strongest card if you actually manage to beat me with those wimpy cards, Kaiba. Which incidentally, I activate now! I tribute my Dark Fiend to activate my Crush Card!"

"What does that do!" said Emily.

"It wipes out all monsters I have with 1500 or more attack..." Kaiba replied, discarding some cards from his deck. "Including this one I just drew."

"Hahaha! You didn't even have many to discard!" grated Wesley. "Your deck must be loaded with those weak fairies! You've got nothing left to defeat my army of fiends!"

Kaiba stolidly placed another monster face-down on the field. "Your turn."

Wesley's monsters again tore through Kaiba's weak fairies to the jeers and catcalls of his cronies. But Kaiba's Human-Wave Tactics was still in effect. This time, however, Kaiba had something extra to offer.

"I activate Call of the Haunted to revive Athena – that _you_ sent to the graveyard with your Crush Card. I should thank you for making her so accessible. And now Human-Wave Tactics special summons four new level two fairies to the field, triggering Athena's special ability."

"And what ability would that be?" spat Wesley. Emily noticed he didn't seem quite so sure of himself this time.

"Perhaps he doesn't know about this card at all!" she thought to herself.

"Every time a Fairy-type monster is special-summoned to the field while Athena is in play," Kaiba was saying, "you take 600 points of damage. And seeing as how I've just special summoned four fairies, it looks like you're down 2400 life points. And now, it's my turn."

He drew a card. Wesley fumed momentarily, but Emily noticed a cocky look returning to his features.

"Athena also allows me to tribute a fairy-type monster in order to special summon another from my graveyard," Kaiba continued. "So I'll sacrifice my Hourglass of Life to bring out another Mystical Shine Ball in defence mode. Say goodbye to another 600 life points! And now I think I'll attack your Opticlops – Athena, attack!"

Wesley laughed. "Some professional you are – you walked right into my trap! I'll activate Shadow Spell, stopping your attack and weakening Athena by 700 attack points!"

"Damn," Kaiba muttered quietly. He set two cards face down. "I'll end my turn."

Wesley drew. "Say goodbye to Athena, Kaiba! I'll tribute my Opticlops to bring forth Summoned Skull! And he has more than enough attack points to take down your Athena, thanks to my Shadow Spell!"

Summoned Skull destroyed Athena and damaged Kaiba's life points slightly, while the rest of Wesleys monsters eliminated Kaiba's four defending fairies.

"Oh, and before you even _think_ about pulling that little Athena stunt again, I'm gonna play Soul Release to send Athena, and the rest of your actually powerful monsters completely out of the game! And now I end my turn."

Kaiba's Human-Wave Tactics activated. However, Kaiba was only able to place three new monsters on the field instead of four.

"Seto, you could have just summoned four monsters," Emily whispered helpfully.

"He hasn't got any left!" said Wesley. "That's the only time Human-Wave Tactics doesn't work. Well Kaiba, it's the sixth turn – let's see you finish me off with only three weak monsters left to use! Hahahaha!"

"Alright," said Kaiba, almost genially. "First, I activate the Transmigration Prophecy, allowing me to return two of my Happy Lovers from my graveyard to my deck. Then I activate The League of Uniform Nomenclature!"

"That's a long name," Emily thought to herself. "What does that do?" she asked, out loud.

"It allows me to special summon two copies of any monster on my field from my deck. In this case, I choose my Happy Lover on the field, and bring out the two I just returned to my deck, giving me a grand total of five monsters on the field. I'll then activate my Triangle power spell card!"

Wesley butted in. "Yeah yeah, all your stupid two-star monsters get 2000 attack points instead of their usual points. You're wasting your time! Your pathetic monsters can't touch my Summoned Skull! That case of cards is mine as soon as you end your turn!"

"You're right," said Kaiba calmly. "So I'll just play one more card. The Law of the Normal!"

Wesley gasped. "What! That's impossible!"

"When five two-star monsters unite on the field, the power of the Law of the Normal comes into effect, destroying **all** of your monsters!" Kaiba roared. "And now – I attack you with all my monsters, for ten thousand points of damage!"

He looked over to Emily.

"That means I win," he clarified.

Emily gaped. Wesley gaped. The cronies gaped. And then, with almost theatrical slowness, Wesley picked up the Crush Card.

"You're as good as they say, Seto Kaiba." He put his deck in his pocket and placed Crush Card in front of Kaiba.

"Take this, then. Guess you earned it. You can give it to your girlfriend, heh!"

He offered his hand to Kaiba, who shook it firmly.

"Well, smell you bums later. I got a whole box of booster packs to open when I get home," sniggered Wesley as he walked away. His fan club looked at him, then Kaiba, and then dashed off after him.

"Well, want it?" said Kaiba, proferring the card to her.

"Nah," said Emily. "Can I have some fairy cards instead?"

"Take 'em all," Kaiba smirked, pushing the deck towards her. "Fancy a ride home?"

Kaiba deposited Emily at her front doorstep in due course.

"That game was amazing!" Emily gushed. "Who would have thought my favourite cards would be so good? No wonder you're the champion!"

"I couldn't have done it without your incredible deck-building skills," said Kaiba teasingly.

"Oh yes," said Emily, playing along. "I guess I'm just a natural."

"Emily! Close that damn door, you're letting the cold in!" shouted her father's voice from the living-room down the hall.

"Well, goodnight, Seto. Thanks for the lovely day out. And thanks for the cards too!"

"Any time. Goodnight," he replied, turning on his heel. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot."

"Hmm?" said Emily, leaning out of the gap between the door and the doorframe.

"Happy birthday," said Kaiba, pressing something into her hands.

He walked swiftly away before she could work out a suitable reply.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **It's a miracle, I know. Two updates so far in one week. Now if only we had people reading our story and reviewing! Oh well, we'll just keep writing chapters while snuggled in bed with hot water bottles and cookies. The husband was hard put to complete this chapter, he had a significant biscuit requirement and refused to write anything but nonsense until he got his required ratio. For once the bloopers were so bad that they all had to be deleted! Rest assured the word "penis" and copious amounts of Rebecca Black lyrics were involved. We we we so excited to bring you the next chapter. Maybe by the end of the week for the next one, if you're lucky. Cookies for reviewers, provided the husband hasn't eaten them all!

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**Chapter Seven**

Emily's holiday passed swiftly but well. Kaiba was a lot busier during the second week of the holidays, but they managed to have lunch together once more, and to see a movie later on in the week (a thriller based upon the concept of a computer-virus transferring to humans - Kaiba poked holes in the plot ruthlessly). Apart from seeing Kaiba, she spent most of the holidays painting and reading. She also managed to coerce David, who played Duel Monsters, to teach her how to play. He was slightly bemused at her suddenly changed opinion of the game, but was quite pleased to have someone friendly to play with. While he admitted to being only an amateur himself, Emily's understanding of the rules flourished under his guidance. It was certainly nice having a common interest with David, who was turning out to be a more interesting friend than she had thought. Before this, she had never even visited his house!

The first week back at school was quite uneventful, apart from the announcement of the school ball in the morning notices, which made Emily whoop quite loudly, much to the amused surprise of her form teacher. She spent the rest of the week drawing costume designs furiously and discussing the theme with her friends (which this year was masquerade). Wigs and masks were going to be very prominent, it was decided, as well as massive skirts. Emily spent a considerable amount of art class on Thursday surreptitiously sketching her latest concept, a dress with a corseted top and layered full skirt that would surround her legs like a cloud. David was quite impressed with her design. Jo wanted to wear something similar, but didn't have the time to sew it herself. When asked what he would be wearing to the ball, Kaiba merely grunted.

The following Monday ended with an assembly. Emily was sitting high on the bleachers, with her girl friends on her left, who were giggling and passing around an origami fortune-teller, and Kaiba sitting slightly apart from everyone else on the right. Emily wasn't quite sure how he managed to find such a roomy position, given the cramped conditions on the rest of the seating. After a few dull introductions and some Maori songs by the school's _Kapa Haka_ group, Emily's favourite teacher, Greg, who taught Art History, had an announcement to make. Emily put aside the fortune-teller and sat up to listen.

"I know you're all looking forward to going home for the weekend, so I'll keep this short and sweet. The Australasian English and Maths competitions are coming up in a few weeks. So all of you who are interested should grab the sign-up sheets from the table on your way out. We came 30th last year out of all the schools in New Zealand, so let's keep aiming high and see if we can improve on last year's great effort!"

There was a mild amount of applause. A well-dressed businessman came onto the stage and began to speak, but Emily was already whispering fiercely to her friend Jo. It was always worth seeing how good you were compared to the rest of the country! Emily had taken part in the maths competition last year and had gotten a score of 98% - which put her in the top 500 of entries. Kaiba nodded towards the stage.

"Interested?" he asked.

Emily nodded happily, already dreaming of smugly revealing a competition award and prize to her enormously impressed family.

A few weeks passed, and Emily saw very little of Kaiba. He seemed to be working a lot more than usual; barely attending classes and disappearing at lunchtimes. Even amidst the ball-fever, Emily missed him, especially in Infotech class, where they had been putting together a new computer with Malcolm. On the other hand, it made it easier for her to focus on studying for the Australasian English and Maths competitions.

On the morning of the day when the Australasian maths exam was to take place, Emily arrived early to school to take advantage of a quiet classroom to do some last-minute cramming. It was raining quite heavily. As she was passing the car-park on her way there, she noticed a dark car dropping off a tall suited figure. She called out:

"Seto!"

And indeed, it was Kaiba. Given his attendance record lately, it was particularly bizarre to see him at school, let alone _early_.

"Morning. What brings you here so early?"

"I was about to ask the same question. Studying!" she smiled. "You?"

"I'm helping out with the Phoenix Technologies presentation. It's happening at lunch time. You're coming, right?"

"Well, I have the Australasian Maths Competition in fourth period," said Emily. "I know it extends somewhat into lunchtime... but I'll do my best!"

"Room A4. Be there!" said Kaiba briskly, striding off into the sheeting rain.

She wasn't quite sure if he'd actually heard her or not. The rain continued to pour endlessly.

The test was delayed by twenty minutes because the testing official had had a breakdown in the bad weather on his way to the school. Emily was highly strung by the time the test began; her usual test nerves frayed by impatience and wondering if she'd get out in time to see whatever Kaiba wanted to show her. However, after some bad starts, she got into her examination mindset and set about answering the questions. Maths was always an exercise in reverse engineering for Emily. The answers swiftly arrived in her head, but to score points she had to figure out how she'd arrived at the answer and note down her working out. The constant hammering of the storm against the roof and windows muffled any noise that students nearby were making. Emily finished checking and doublechecking her work, and then triplechecked her work just to be sure. She had finished ten minutes early but had to stay in the room as part of the rules (because nothing distracts one from working on a test quite like the sight of someone smugly handing in their test sheet and walking out into the freedom of the outside world). Finally, after possibly the longest ten minutes of her life, the examiner called out:

"Alright everybody, pens down. Please bring your test sheets to the front. Make sure you have put your name and ID number on the front or you will not receive a mark!"

There was a general shuffling of chairs as the students laboriously scraped up their papers and took them to the front of the room. Lightyears ahead of them, Emily had already slapped her test in front of the bemused examiner and had dashed out of the room.

She arrived outside room A4 in time to see a large cluster of boys and a smattering of girls emerging from it, all gabbling loudly. Emily tried to wade through them to see what had been going on inside the room, but she couldn't quite get past the surge of people, and she was too short to see over their heads. A gap in the crowd heralded the exit of Kaiba from the room. He looked elated and slightly flushed, and very pleased with himself. A shadow passed over his face when he saw Emily.

"You missed it," he said quietly.

"The test ran late – I finished early but you're not allowed to leave until the time is up," she explained breathlessly. "I did try, Seto."

"Don't call me Seto," he said in monotone. He began walking away, his long strides sucking him into the distance rapidly.

"Seto?" she called. "Kaiba? Where are you going?"

The bell rang. Emily didn't move, suddenly alone. And it rained on.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note. **Apologies for the double post, I uploaded this chapter with all of the plot notes at the bottom, so had to delete it immediately and edit it**.** You'll notice that this chapter is another short one, we had major writer's block getting it started. However, we've got the synopsis for Chapter 9 written, and Chapter 10 is almost completely written in itself. So expect another update within the week again or so. A special thanks to Lord Davis, who has been instrumental in hassling us to write more. Keep up the nagging! And the reviews! ~ FM

* * *

**Chapter Eight  
**

Two weeks later, and Kaiba had not relented. Every time she saw him (and this was even scarcer than before), he would turn his back on her. Even in class, he would bury himself into a thick book, or type pointedly on his laptop. Emily had never felt so alone.

Her test results for the Australasian Maths exams came back, and her marks were in the 99th percentile. She was awarded a scholarship for three years of University study. Her parents were enormously proud. Suddenly they were more than happy to drive her to school everday, or to make her favourite dinner, or even to occasionally entertain her odd theories and notions. It felt very false, somehow. Kaiba had opened her eyes to her parent's duplicity and lack of true appreciation for her, and so what would have pleased her immensely only a year before was instead empty of feeling. Looking ahead, however, she was looking forward starting Uni without the added stress of fees. She had overheard her mother boasting loftily to Auntie Kylie over the phone, bragging about her achievements and claiming that Emily was going to law school on her scholarship. Emily decided that no matter what it cost her in terms of her relationship with her parents, she was going to study Art.

On Saturday, Emily had the house to herself. Her parents were away for the weekend, visiting friends in the South Island, leaving her in sole charge of their more-than-slightly insane dog, Barf. He was currently sitting outside her room, blocked by a barricade of fabric bags and boxes, whining mournfully. By the bizzarre gurgling noises emanating from his stomach, Emily deduced that he had again got into the bag of green potatoes under the sink.

"You're not coming in, Barf," she muttered exasperatedly, whilst trying in vain to thread a needle. "I'm making my ball dress, and you'd ruin it."

Barf, for once, took the hint, and loped off down the hall to take a nap on Emily's Parent's bed, realising this was his best opportunity.

Emily squinted fiercely at the needle and pushed the thread carefully through the eye, her hand quivering slightly. She had finally settled on a colour for her ball gown; Aquamarine, in two-toned fabric. It was going to be, she thought, as she pushed the needle through the fabric, the best outfit she had ever sewn. She was having a frustrating time, however. She was sure she had more of this fabric somewhere, but her family had moved house a year ago, and a lot of her materials had not been put away properly. Barf made a choking noise in the hallway. Emily glanced at the doorway and poked herself with the pin in her distraction.

"Damn it!" she yelled.

She pushed aside a tower of boxes and dashed to the bathroom, sucking her finger. Something was driving her crazy - she decided as she put a plaster on - and it wasn't just the fabric. It was that _Kaiba_, turning his back on her like that. What _was _his problem? She slammed her fist onto the edge of the sink, and winced slightly. Things just weren't right when he wasn't around, but god, he was such an arrogant asshole sometimes! She looked at her irate expression in the mirror. Well, if he wasn't going to try and make things better, _she_would. Her mind made up, she went to her room, dug into her handbag and checked the bus timetable. The next bus going out Kaiba's way wasn't for another hour yet. Which was kind of a blessing in disguise, as, judging by some horrible retching noises, followed by some splat-like sounds, Barf had just rid himself of half a bag of green potatoes.

She was still suitably enraged two and a half hours later, when, drenched in sweat from the walk from the closest bus stop, not to mention a ten minute climb up the extremely long driveway, she arrived at Kaiba's elegant bush home. She paused for a moment on the doorstep to catch her breath, and then, taking a deep breath, she pushed the doorbell. Nothing happened. She pressed the doorbell again. And again. She knocked on the door fiercely with her uninjured hand. She shouted. No-one was home. She turned around and slid gently to the floor, sobbing. All this way, for nothing! She realised she hadn't even checked the bus timetable for the next bus home. It could be hours.

There was a crunch of gravel. Emily looked up from behind her hands. A black SUV with tinted windows had pulled up. Emily wiped her eyes carefully and adjusted her hair, trying to not to look like she had been crying, and almost succeeding. Mokuba Kaiba wandered up to her, his eyes wide open in surprise, followed by tall a suited man, who inspected her critically from behind his dark glasses.

"Emily?" said Mokuba. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see K- I mean, Seto," she replied.

"Guess he wasn't expecting you," chuckled Mokuba sweetly. "Come on in, you can hang out with me. He might be back soon if you're lucky."

The suited man held the door open for them. Emily could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head as she picked up her handbag and followed Mokuba through the doorway.

"So I was wondering," Mokuba was saying, spraying muffin crumbs everywhere, "where have you been? I haven't seen you for weeks, and Seto hasn't told me a thing. You'd think he'd be pleased, seeing as how his new dev-"

The bodyguard in the corner coughed slightly. Emily, after giving him a brief glance, launched into her tale of woe.

"...and now he won't even talk to me!" she finished.

"That day was kinda a big deal to him," said Mokuba. "I can't say much more about it, but it sounds to me like he got carried away with his work and didn't pay much attention to the fact that you were going to be busy. He's like that sometimes. He gets really caught up in his work."

"Well he could have _told _me that!" she exclaimed in exasperation.

"He's pretty private," explained Mokuba helplessly.

"You can say that again. I don't even know his cellphone number, or even his birthday."

"October 25th is his birthday. But don't tell him I told you!" Mokuba grinned.

Emily's face broke out into a smile. "Really? That's the day of the ball! Now I can start planning what his present will be. That's if he'll ever speak to me again..."

"I'll talk to him," promised Mokuba. "Don't worry about it. Hey, you wanna play Xbox with me?"

"Sure! I've never played on one before, though," said Emily. "You'll have to teach me."

"You've never played on an Xbox before?" said Mokuba. "Oh boy, you're gonna love it."

They had a fun evening together. After playing Xbox (where Emily accidentally walked her character off a number of different virtual cliffs), Mokuba helped Emily to add an extra page to her yearbook so he could paint her a picture inside it. After Mokuba had finished painting a self-portrait in her yearbook, they put it into the hot water cupboard to dry. Then they had dinner. Seto's french chef wasn't there that day, but Roland, Mokuba's taciturn bodyguard, turned out to be a dab hand at preparing macaroni cheese. After dinner, and a few casual games of duel monsters, Roland materialised again, still wearing an apron.

"It's nine o'clock, Master Mokuba. I have arranged a taxi for the young lady. It is waiting outside."

"Bummer," said Mokuba. "Must be my bed time. I'll walk you to the door."

Emily swept her cards and other miscellaneous objects into her bag and walked through the house to the front door.

"Thanks for getting me a taxi, Roland!" she called to the bodyguard, who nodded emotionlessly. "And thank you too, Mokuba. I feel much better after a nice relaxing afternoon. Now I can get back to my sewing."

"Seeya Emily!" waved Mokuba. Roland closed the door swiftly.

She walked over to the waiting taxi.

"That guy in the apron gave me a hundred bucks," said the driver. "So where do you want to go?"

"Home," said Emily, not thinking of duplicitous parents or puking dogs, but of a large aquamarine dress, and a future that somehow seemed much brighter.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: **Happy May Everyone! It's the husband's birthday on the 20th, and today he's in especially good form. Here's the chapter that we promised, the next one is almost done. We're in good form, our Kindles arrived today, and it's been a while since we read so much, honestly, eBooks are the future of reading, so let's make sure that reading has a future! And with that, we dedicate this chapter to all of our new readers, who hail from many weird and wacky locations around the globe. Hopefully the bloopers section at the end won't completely alienate too many of you. Special brownie points for anyone who gets the reference in the last blooper. And as always, COOKIES FOR REVIEWS! **~Flawless Masquerade  
**

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

Emily was in a better state of mind since her chat with Mokuba. She felt she understood Kaiba's point of view a little better. The next time she saw him, she decided, she was going to sort things out. Seto was going to get a piece of her mind!

However, things didn't happen exactly the way she had planned. It was Tuesday morning. She arrived early to Infotech and sat down in her usual corner and logged into the computer. She tried to access Malcolm's "secret" movie folder, but it looked like he had changed his password.

"Hmmm," she wondered aloud. "I wonder if I can trick Malcolm into revealing his password..."

"Social engineering will only get you so far," said a gruff voice behind her. "Sometimes you've gotta get your hands dirty."

Emily looked up. Kaiba loomed over her.

"Lemme show you," he said. She moved aside wordlessly. He pulled up a chair, sat down in front of the keyboard and accessed a command prompt. Emily watched him mutely as he deftly navigated around the school's security protocols. After a while, even Seto noticed that she wasn't saying anything.

"Listen, about the last few weeks... hmm. Look, I don't do apologies. I still consider you a friend..."

"Mokuba talked to you, didn't he?" said Emily slyly.

"Yeah," Kaiba replied. He paused in his typing. "You and I just had a misunderstanding, that's all. Plus I haven't slept for the last half-month. What I'm working on is something really groundbreaking, and I've been working on it non-stop." He began typing again and tapped the Enter key with a flourish. "By the way, Malcolm's password is sp4c3b4lls. Wasn't he watching that movie last week?"

Emily nodded. Then she smiled. "It's good to have you back. But next time you do something like this, get Roland to drive me to your house so I don't have to walk over when you deserve a chewing out!"

The week passed pleasantly, Emily was happy as Kaiba was back in classes (mostly), and the dark circles under his eyes were slowly fading. The following Wednesday, after IT, she and Seto remained in class during the morning break for a lesson in the finer points of hacking, courtesy of one S. Kaiba. They were using the School's network as their playground. After successfully gaining unabridged access to the student's personal records, Emily decided to dig up some dirt on a person she was most curious about. However, when she attempted to access the record, her computer shut down abruptly.

"Hey!" she said, wrinkling her nose at the monitor. "When I tried to look at that record, my PC turned itself off!"

"My bad," smirked Kaiba. "I must have _accidentally_ bound a shutdown command to my permanent record. Silly me; how careless."

Emily pouted.

"Who am I meant to spy on now?"

"You could always tweak your test scores a little."

"Seto Kaiba! Why I never!"

"You could use the points. My scores are superior, as usual."

"Oh yeah?" Emily retorted playfully. "Why don't you log in and **prove**it?"

"Like I'd fall for that. Oh yeah, I've got something for you."

Emily cynically noticed the change in topic, but the object in Kaiba's hand swiftly distracted her.

"My yearbook! I didn't even notice I'd lost it!"

"Surely you must have noticed that your bag was about 10kgs lighter," replied Kaiba dourly. "I've been lugging it around all morning."

Emily plonked the book into her bag. It landed within with a satisfying thud. Sitting back down in front of her computer, she gestured to Kaiba, who was casually modifying his attendance records.

"Y'know, this hacking stuff isn't nearly as glamorous as it looks like on TV. There aren't any interesting animations or noises!"

"Yeah," replied Kaiba. "But it sure is fun."

Emily had spent the last two weeks since she and Kaiba had resolved their differences steeling herself to do it. But she was sure of herself this time. He was a great guy when he wasn't being moody, fiercely intelligent and sardonically humorous. It was time to take things to the next level. It was time to see how good he looked in a suit. It was time to find out if Seto Kaiba could dance!

On Tuesday, she brought her make-up kit to school. She barely ever wore make-up, but today she decided she could use all the help she could get. She left her fourth period class early to get to a bathroom so she could have her face made up by the time the lunch bell rang. Her teacher was more than happy to accommodate the wishes of such a gifted student. Emily felt she could have gotten away with just about anything if she tried hard enough!

Face painstakingly decorated, she strode out of the bathroom, doublechecking her dress was straight, and headed for Kaiba's typical hangout on a Wednesday afternoon – these days he liked to sit under a tree on the edge of the field, reading or holding hushed calls on his cellphone. She hurried through the school just as the bell went, sending students scattering left and right. Emily pushed past them and tried not to catch anybody's eye – she suddenly wasn't so sure about the dress she was wearing. It was a _bit _too sexy for an afternoon's serious schooling – although not nearly as revealing as the kinds of clothing _some_ girls wore. She skirted the edges of the school, striding as swiftly as her skirt would allow, hoping fervently that she wouldn't be seen by her friends.

When she reached the tree, to her slight annoyance, Seto was already there, busily engaged with a slim novel. Emily gulped. It was now or never! She sat beside him, carefully tucking her skirt down.

"Hey," he said, not looking up from his book.

"Hey Kaiba," she said. She paused for a moment – how on earth did you go from "hey" to "do you want to go to the ball with me"? She summoned up her courage.

"So do you want to, er, I mean, the ball, I..." she faded out.

"Mmh?" said Kaiba, looking up from his book.

"Are you going to the school ball? It's only two weeks away." she asked quickly, mentally headbutting a wall.

"Probably not," Kaiba said slowly. "I don't really have the time to get all dressed up. Masquerade is not exactly my wardrobe of choice, either," he said wryly.

"I think you'd look good in a tailcoated suit," Emily gushed. "With a wig, and a top hat, and a wig, and a mask, and a -"

"You said wig twice," grumbled Kaiba. "I assume you are attending this event?"

"Oh definitely, I've been working on my costume ever since the theme was announced!"

"You're such a girl," he said, baring his teeth in what he clearly considered a friendly manner. "Speaking of which, 'the hell's all that on your face, anyway?"

Emily glowered. "Asexual bastard," she thought to herself.

Kaiba pulled another disappearing act in the week leading up to the ball, but Emily didn't have time to fret about him, as she still had a mountain of sewing to do. Her spare time kept disappearing into mounds of fabric, and she was even bringing sections to school with her to work on during break times (and IT – Malcolm had given up on trying to teach her anything). Seniors got the day off before the ball, which was a blessing. She sewed and sewed right up to the last minute.

Finally, she stood up and surveyed the dress on the mannequin. Barf was curled up in a corner sleeping fitfully in a nest of off-cuts. Her room was covered with threads and pattern sheets. She glanced at the package sitting against the edge of her bed. She hoped like hell Kaiba would show up. It was his birthday after all. Everything seemed so uncertain – she'd put so much effort into her outfit that the other details were quite disorganised. She'd only realised a few hours earlier that she didn't have a way of getting to the ball, and had desperately appealed to her mother for transport.

But the dress was perfect. She smiled to herself. It was going to be a night to remember.

* * *

**And for those of you who can take the lighter side, for those of you who feel some seriously inappropriate comedy would mar the story, stop reading after the bold. Again, this is how we fight writer's block. We're not some kind of sillies who write this kind of stuff all the time. Then again...**

...Emily and Kaiba were happily tinkering in Malcolm's workshop. Kaiba masturbated slowly as Emily sexily placed parts in a chassis.

"_Yeah baby, insert that RAM," said Kaiba huskily. "Ooh yeah, gimme another harddrive! Yes! Yes! Oh God, attach it like that, ye-eesssss, don't stop, don't sto – OOOHHH FUCKKKKK YESSSS!"_

"Hey!" she said, wrinkling her nose at the monitor. "When I tried to look at that record, my PC turned itself off!"

"_Gahahahahaha-HIC!" laughed Kaiba, hiccuping abruptly._


	10. Chapter 10

**15th June -** And here it is, that ever elusive update called chapter ten. This chapter gave us some annoying writer's problems that even our crazy silly bloopers couldn't overcome, hence it being a month late! Not to mention we've been sick, and very very busy with work! We hope that you like it, and look forward to your messages, show us some love. This chapter was updated tonight because **Dontgotaclue88** reviewed and spurred us on for those last couple of fiddly paragraphs! Cookies for reviews, as always. ~FM

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Street lights flashed through a sky of dark blue amidst a horizon of towering buildings. Emily was sitting in the passenger seat of her mother's car, dressed in the gorgeous aquamarine dress, finally completed. She was pensively clutching a large flat package on top of her huge skirts like it was a lifeline. Her thoughts flashed in and out of her mind like the winking lights of the city she was passing through. Tonight was the night of the ball, and Seto Kaiba's birthday. And he still hadn't told her if he was coming or not! It wouldn't be nearly as much fun without him. So wrapped up in her thoughts was Emily, that she didn't notice immediately that the car had stopped.

"Emily, we've arrived." her mother said.

"Thanks for the ride Mum, I'll see you later." she said, removing herself awkwardly from the car, carefully lifting her skirts to stop them touching the dusty pavement. Her mother passed her a large, flat package firmly wrapped in brown paper.

"Have fun. I hope that boy likes his present."

Emily waved as the car drove off. The ball was to take place within a large dance hall in town. She looked up at it, pleased. It fit the period of the theme nicely, with large narrow windows, ornate facings, and elegant pillars. She glanced at her dress and adjusted her skirts. The months of sewing had paid off; her costume was huge and extravagant, but somehow elegant at the same time, the slightly corseted waist flattered her curves, whilst the top of the dress was strapless, making her shoulders and neck look delightful. The double-weaved aquamarine shimmered as she walked up to the doors.

David met her in the hall, looking surprisingly stylish with a dark suit draping his large frame.

"Hey Emily. Nice dress!"

"Thanks," said Emily. "You don't look so bad yourself. Where's your mask?"

"Oh yeah," said David. He rummaged in a pocket and pulled out a simple Zorro-style mask. "Shall we?" he asked, extending his arm. Emily took it, and together they walked towards the roaring hall.

"I can't believe neither of us found dates," Emily murmured.

"I have trouble with women," David said airily. "I become friends with them, and by the time I come to ask them out, they tell me they don't want to date me, in case it spoils the friendship! It doesn't make sense! I mean, by dating, we'd _enhancing _our friendship, not ruining it. You know what I mean?"

"Which girl is saying this?" Emily asked.

"Huh. All of them," David replied.

"Which oooonne?" Emily persisted.

"…Sarah," David said in a small voice.

"Sarah Mackenzie? In Art? With the dark red hair?"

David nodded tersely.

Emily smiled, and quietly resolved to have a word with Sarah later on. They arrived at the doorway to the hall, and presented their tickets to a grumpy-looking Marianna, who was wearing a stuffy-looking brown dress and petticoat, and a rather dented gold eyemask. She was arguing with another teacher, and hardly glanced at Emily and David as she stamped their tickets.

"Why am I stuck on door duty tonight? I'm a member of the school board!" she was saying.

"You _were_ a member of the school board – until they found all of that pornography on your PC," replied the other teacher coldly. "You should be glad all you're doing is door duty."

"I'm telling you, I don't know how all that stuff got on my computer! I don't even know how to use Google for Christ's sake!"

"What was all that about?" David asked Emily, as the doors closed, and the sound of Marianna's shrieking was swiftly swallowed up by a wall of bass and rhythm.

"I don't know, but I have a feeling I know who's responsible," said Emily, grinning. "Oh wow, just look at this place!"

The dance hall was a classic ballroom, with small private balconies on one side, and huge windows with dark velvet curtains covering them. In the centre of the room, there was a lowered section with stairs leading down to a glass-tiled dance floor. There were already small groups of students forming there chatting and watching the DJ warming up. The glass tiles and disco lights lit up with coloured lights sporadically as someone tested the lighting system. Along the opposite side of the room, there were tables along the other side of the room, covered with food and drinks – including, not surprisingly, a huge bowl of punch. Emily and David wandered over to it.

"God we must watch a lot of American TV," Emily said, lifting the ladle and peering at its contents critically. "I didn't think people drank punch in New Zealand."

"If there wasn't any punch, there would be nothing to spike," said David wisely. He gave the ladle a sniff. "Smells like someone's already put booze in it."

"Yeuch!" exclaimed Emily. She put the ladle down and un-wedged her package from underneath her armpit. She then lifted the tablecloth and discreetly slid the parcel underneath the table, propping it up against a table leg. David looked askance.

"It's for Seto. It's his birthday today," she explained.

"I thought he wasn't coming?"

"I know. This is in case he changes his mind."

They leaned against the table. David nonchalantly sipped a cup of the spiked punch. A cluster of their friends burst through the doors, and, spotting them, rushed over to the table. David introduced the boys to the contents of the punch bowl while Emily and the girls chattered happily about their costumes. Emily was quite amazed when she looked around and took proper notice of what everyone was wearing.

"Look at everyone's outfits," Emily said, starry-eyed. The hall was awash with be-wigged students, a few in elegant modern clothes and masks, but many had taken the theme seriously. There were many extravagant coats and sweeping dresses, and masks ranging from plain white facemasks to feathered and jewelled stage masks on sticks. Even the teachers had made an effort. Jo pointed at Mr Stewart, who was trying and failing to have a friendly conversation with a surly-looking group of boys who were lounging against the far wall.

"His hair looks kind of awkward – is he wearing his toupee underneath that wig?"

They all giggled. Mr Stewart's hair was certainly quite lopsided.

"I like his jacket, though," said Sarah. "I'm going to the loo, back in a sec guys!"

"I'll come too, I need to do my makeup," said Jo.

Somehow all the girls ended up going, Emily wasn't quite sure how she got dragged along, but looking at her reflection, she was glad that she had. She rearranged her dark curls pedantically until they cascaded in the correct fashion.

"How do I look?" she asked Jo concernedly.

"You don't need to fuss, Em," Jo said, her eyelid fluttering strangely as she tried to wink whilst fixing her eyeliner. "You look stunning. I really do love your dress."

Sarah came out of the cubicle and joined the others at the mirror. "I certainly wouldn't be fretting if I were you Emily. I'm just worried that I won't get asked to dance all night... Not that I can dance, anyway..."

Emily scrutinised her friends in the mirror. Her mask gave her a rather dramatic look.

"That's why we came as a group, Sarah. So we could all have someone to dance with. Although something tells me David wouldn't object to a dance with you."

"David? Really? I didn't think I was his type!"

"You won't know unless you try. I think he's really into you."

Sarah looked at Emily sceptically, and then led the girls went back into the thrum and throng of the ballroom, joining the rest of their group. The ball was in full swing by this point, with couples and groups all over the dance floor. David offered his arm to Emily.

"May I have this dance?"

"Don't ask me, ask Sarah," she replied quietly, with a smile.

"Sarah? Hmm, what have you been up to?"

"You never know what we girls do in a bathroom together." Emily replied with a smirk, shoving David ever so slightly towards Sarah. "But believe me; I can get results when I want to."

Emily sat down at the table, watching her friends pairing off to the dance floor. She looked around the room at all of the static faces, trying to see if Seto had arrived yet. It was hard to identify of the boys in their masks, given that, unlike the girls, they were more or less wearing the same outfit: a suit and mask. She gave up with a sigh. A voice spoke suddenly from her left.

"A pretty lady such as yourself shouldn't be sitting alone watching the merriment of others," said a boy whom she hadn't noticed earlier, sitting a few chairs down. "She should be a part of it. May I have this dance, lovely lady?"

His voice was husky, and ever so slightly tinged with nervousness. Emily was surprised, and then, a moment later, deeply pleased with herself. She felt a thrill in her stomach.

"If you dance as well as you persuade, then the answer is yes, kind sir," she replied loftily.

He held out a hand, and led her out to the crowded dance floor.

The evening passed in a noisy, colourful blur. After a few exciting dances with her, the strange boy left, thanking her nobly. Emily found it hard to leave the dance floor, and was swept up by anyone and everyone. She danced with David, she danced with her girlfriends, she even danced with a strangely tipsy Marianna, who apologised to her with great aplomb in a distracted fashion, before being gently pulled away from the dance floor by one of the other teachers.

She finally slid away from the crowd and sat down on a chair near the stage, looking at the clock. It was almost eleven, and she had still seen nothing of Kaiba. It was almost certain now that he was as good as his word, and would not be attending. But it didn't stop her looking carefully at every tall, slender boy who passed by. She felt sure that even in disguise, she would recognise his way of walking, or the confident way he stood, or any of his many unusual mannerisms. Even without him, it had been a fantastic night. But if he had come…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a voice, something that was becoming somewhat of a habit. It was the Principal.

"If I can have your attention please," Principal Stewart's voice echoed through the room, causing all of the dancers to stop. "I want to say a few words. Firstly, I want to thank the ball committee for having put a wonderful ball together."

At this, the student body started clapping loudly, making Principal Stewart stop talking for a moment. He waited for the crowd to die down, and then continued.

"This year has been one of those years you look back on and say, wow, I was there, I taught those kids, I got to be around those people, those leaders of tomorrow. We're going to hand out a few awards now." He paused and peered at some cards in his hands. "The first students are receiving these awards, not only their great contributions to the school, but for their incredible academic achievement. Can we please get Emily Rose and Seto Kaiba up to the stage?"

Emily watched as a tall figure unfolded himself from a chair and strode smoothly up to the stage. The sight of the person in question distracted her immensely. Was it really him? She got out of her chair quickly and stepped forward, only to fall prey to her entangling dress. She fell clumsily against the side of the stage.

Emily swore quietly as she disentangled herself. A hand reached down to help her up.

"Thanks S—"

She cut herself off when she saw that it was Principal Stewart's hand helping her up, not Seto's.

"Thank you, Principal Stewart," she amended swiftly.

"I couldn't have one of my best students laying down while she receives her reward, can I?" he replied in what he clearly believed was a hearty fashion.

Emily glanced over at Seto. He was staring resolutely at the crowd, not paying attention to her. She was deeply pleased to see him, although he was coolly ignoring her eyes. She smiled as she received her award from the Principal, and quietly reflected that it was typical of Seto to not show reveal his emotions in front of the crowd. As Principal Stewart began calling out the names of other students who were receiving rewards, Kaiba quietly stepped off the stage and began moving away through the crowd. Emily gathered up her skirts and followed him. He wasn't looking back at her, which made her frantic. She shoved her way through the students, and then darted quickly to the punch table to retrieve package and then hurried after him down the hall. He slid through a curtain, with Emily close behind. They emerged outside on a balcony covered with fairy lights. Emily tried to see Kaiba's expression, but his face was shadowed by the brilliant wig he was wearing. The music had fallen into the background, the sounds of the ballroom muted, the lights otherworldly.

Emily was clutching the package like a lifeline once more. When she started to speak, her voice was much quieter than normal.

"Seto, I've been looking for you all evening. Your costume is fantastic, no wonder I couldn't tell it was you."

"Don't get used to it. This wig is extremely itchy," he said, tossing the item in question off the balcony moodily.

"Still, you look good all handsomed up. Somehow the clothing of this era suits you."

He grunted. "You don't look so bad yourself," he said, looking her up and down. "How many hours did you spend making that ridiculous skirt?"

"Only like twenty-four. But I didn't want to talk to you about clothes. A little birdie told me it was your birthday, so I got you a little something."

She proffered the package. Kaiba opened the present by grasping a corner and swiftly tearing a strip of the wrapping off of it. It was a painting. His eyes narrowed when he saw it, and his face darkened. He was silent for a long moment, gripping the painting. He could see an image of himself in what Emily had painted, and for some reason it seemed to cause something to snap within him. He pushed the painting back into her arms.

"I know what this gift means, and I can't accept it," he said coldly.

"What do you mean?"

"I... don't have feelings for you. In fact I hardly consider you a friend."

Emily was aghast.

"But... this past year... everything we've been through together. Did our coding and projects mean nothing to you?"

"They were entertaining, while they lasted. But it's over now. I'm going back home tomorrow – my _real_ home. And I don't need the likes of you tagging at my heels."

"B-but what about your exams?", said Emily desperately.

He snorted. "I made a little _donation_ to the school in exchange for them arranging my exams early. I have no further reason to stay here."

"But Seto, you haven't seen the entire paint-"

"Don't call me Seto."

He turned abruptly on his heel and strode swiftly away. The deep curtains swallowed him whole.

For Emily, time suddenly slowed to a crawl. The lights went dim, and the background noise of the ball became fuzzy and distant. For a moment, she considered chasing after him, but instead, she weakly fell to her knees. The discarded painting slid into her blurred line of sight. Seeing it pushed her over the edge; her dams broke, and tears flooded down her cheeks. She wept without restraint. Suddenly, everything had changed.

The fairy lights glimmered and twinkled happily above her, mocking her sadness.

Next to her on the floor, the wrapping paper on the painting sagged ever so slightly. The painting was of Seto on the clifftop, his arm around his little brother.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: **It seems like we've spent ages writing this chapter, when in fact, we've just spent ages not writing. Blame moving house, and too much else to get done. Stay tuned for more soon, we will deliver! **  
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**Chapter ****Eleven**

And just like that, Seto Kaiba vanished from Emily's life. Time, which had sped happily by for most of the year, changed. The hours seemed to stretch on endlessly, and yet, weeks later, after school had ended for the year, the time – devoid of any notable events – seemed to have flown by. She passed her exams easily, but didn't take any joy in her flawless results – thinking about test scores only reminded her of him.

The sun came back to Auckland, and with it, far fewer distractions from her painful thoughts.

"How easily love can turn to hate," Emily thought bitterly, slowly tearing the petals off a summer flower that had grown too close to her window. It was a few weeks after High School had finished.

Kaiba was a pig; she realised this now. She had been a nice toy for his amusement while he was forced to spend his time in New Zealand, and, now that he had had no further reason to stay, he had discarded her without a second thought. She hurled the bare stalk at the window and curled up into a ball. She could hear agitated footsteps coming up the hall.

Her door opened and jammed halfway on a pile of half-opened books.

"Emily, get up and go outside, for Christ's sake," her mother grated through the gap. "It's beautiful outside. Go for a walk or something!"

"I don't want to," Emily mumbled into her pillow.

"This room is a tip," said her mother, pushing her way into the room. "Grandma is coming to visit tomorrow and I don't want her to think we live like pigs! I want this place cleaned up before tomorrow morning, or you'll be in deep trouble, young lady! At your age I was out working, not lazing around at my parent's house…"

She tried to slam the door behind her, but one of the books was firmly snarled up underneath it, and so her dramatic exit became somewhat of an ungainly struggle with the door handle. After her mother had left, Emily rolled off her bed and picked the book up. Half of the pages were now firmly folded in half, and its spine was flattened. Emily felt indignant at herself; it was alright to treat _herself _badly, but to have let her books lay everywhere in such a state was deeply, deeply wrong. She carefully unfolded the book's pages and placed the book under some phone-books to fix the spine. Then she set about putting all her books back on their shelves. And somehow, in spite of her resentment towards her mother, she got into the rhythm of cleaning. She piled her dirty clothes into a corner, and started putting rubbish into a plastic bag she had found. She picked up pens and returned them to her pencil case. She collected all the scraps of fabric and her sewing equipment and stored them away carefully. She opened the windows and let the fresh air suck away the dust of her depression.

There was one place she hadn't cleaned yet. She crouched by the mess that had, once the junk in front of the door had been removed, had spilled out of her wardrobe. Her ball dress lay on top of the pile of her school things. She smoothed it out, folded it, and placed it to one side. In front of her lay all the painful reminders of Seto Kaiba's existence. She carefully plucked a pair of underwear out the inside of a computer – her computer; Kaiba had been "improving" it a few weeks before he left. He was always fixing things that weren't broken. She fished out the rest of the case and then put the computer on her desk. Wedged between two schoolbooks, she found a photostrip from a cheesy photobooth she'd had to kick Seto in the shins to get him inside. It was a rather atypical set of photos though – her giggling, him looking carelessly away from the camera. Was that a slight smirk on his lips? She flipped the photostrip upside down pointedly.

All these things not only represented Kaiba; they represented the wonderful times they had had together. Times filled with a certain amount of frustration and annoyance, certainly, but they had all been worthwhile. In spite of her feelings, Emily knew these things had real value to her. Even if it hurt just to look at them.

Maybe one day the pain would fade away, leaving only the good memories that they had shared. For now, though, all these physical reminders of him had to go. Emily threw all the items into an old sheet and hauled them up a ladder into the attic. Up there was an old crate she used to use as her Hogwarts Trunk. There were a few seagull-feather quills in there and some coffee-stained paper, as well as a few rocks and a stick she used to pretend was her wand. She removed her Harry Potter paraphernalia, and then began packing away the legacy Kaiba had left behind. In went the painting she had made for him, still mostly wrapped. In went the photostrip, all the notes they had exchanged in class, the newspaper clippings they had featured in together, and a couple of quite beautiful bird drawings Mokuba had given her. In went her ball dress, carefully wrapped up in layers of plastic. Lastly, she put in her school yearbook. Even though he'd never signed it, she felt that it represented the year that had belonged completely to him. She stood up and prepared to close the lid on the memory of Seto Kaiba. She paused, and fished around her neckline for the cord looped around it. It was the gift Kaiba had given her for her birthday.

"Hmm, I suppose you'd better go in too," she said to the pendant in her hand. She closed her eyes and dropped it into the box, and then flipped the lid down. It closed with a very final-sounding clunk. She draped a few shrouds over the chest for good measure. And with that, she turned on her heel and climbed back down the ladder, with tears in her eyes.

The hatch slid shut, cutting off the dim light. Under the shrouds, inside the box, nestled in a plastic well, slightly obscured by a scrap of paper with a sparrow drawn on it, Kaiba's gift lay in the darkness. A dragon made of white gold, tied to a string. Its blue eyes glinted in the shadows. Waiting.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: **Well now, we actually had this chapter already written, believe it or not, all of the chapters prior to this only showed up as one chapter in our original synopsis. Needless to say, it's grown somewhat, as has the husband's writing skills, which now exceed his orignal work on this chapter. After an evening's rewrite, it's now ready for you folks to peruse. Another big thanks to our regular readers and reviewers, particularly Kiski, who immersed herself so deeply that sometimes it feels as though she really understands the story as well as its authors. And that is no mean feat. We hope you'll start reading us regularly again, as we already have a few nice chunks of content written already that just needs to pass through our rigourous quality control. **  
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**Chapter Twelve**

Fast forward two years.

Emily pursued her scholarship and studied Art at university. In spite of herself, she found that university dulled her interest in even her favourite subject, rather than enhancing it. The system didn't match her pace or her talent, and she frequently found it impossible to adhere to the simplistic instructions she was given; instead creating wild masterpieces of her own. So, despite her skills, she was graded poorly, and this galled her immensely. She surprised herself with her rebelliousness; but, this was Art, and she couldn't hold herself back. She certainly had never been like this in High School, but she took a grim satisfaction with each mutinous artwork she created. It didn't make her many friends in class. Or maybe it would have, except she didn't pay much attention to her classmates. That too was a change in her.

When she wasn't painting, she spent much of her time at home, tinkering with electronics. She had developed a passion for technology after she put her computer back together. She never had quite enough money to buy new parts, so she became rather ingenious at getting the most out of broken and second-hand parts by repairing or improving them. Her life was somewhat lonely, but while it was harder to connect to other people, she found that she had never been more connected to herself. Her existence was somewhat at a standstill, even though she felt content.

But one day, when she was walking home, she saw a duel disk, lying discarded on the top of a rubbish bin. And then everything changed again.

The duel disk was fried - it had clearly been dropped into a pool or something, because rust had damaged the fan and caused the CPU to overheat and melt. However, she managed to salvage the projector from it and spent a good deal of time in her basement figuring out how it worked. After a great deal of research on the internet, she managed to connect the projector unit to her laptop. With the help of some software she developed, she managed to get the projector to project her laptop's screen in midair. This, she thought to herself, was worth something. She developed a blueprint for a small touch-screen palm computer, that would use a custom-built projector unit she had designed to display a holographic screen of whatever size the user desired, up to about one metre square. She patented the concept and went online to see which company she could ask to fund and produce her work. She eventually settled on a company called Phoenix Technologies, whose share value had tripled in the last year. If she was honest with herself, though, she had really picked it just because she liked the name. She smiled to herself. And why not? It was her invention after all! She mailed a copy of her designs to the Phoenix Technologies headquarters in Auckland, signing off the letter with the pseudonym, "Ivy Rosewood".

The next day, while she was in the library, taking advantage of the free internet, her cellphone began to ring crazily. She fumbled it out from the depths of her handbag.

"Uh, hello?" she whispered.

"G'day, is this Ms Rosewood?" said the voice enthusiastically.

"Who? I mean, uh, yes, that's me. Is this Phoenix Technologies?"

She cursed mentally. Some mistress of disguise _she_ was! Fortunately, the man didn't seem to have noticed her fumble.

"That's right! I'm Ivan Jones, Creative Director," he was saying. "Your product is one of the most fantastic concepts we've come across, and it came right out of the blue. Your projector concept is brilliant, as is its practical use. I don't usually deliver this kind of news over the phone, but as you requested in your letter that you didn't want to meet with anyone at this stage, well, I've been authorised to fund you $300,000 to develop a working prototype if you can prove ownership of conc..."

He was cut off by a high-pitched screeching sound. The librarian looked sternly over her glasses at Emily, who was standing on top of her chair whooping shrilly. Emily looked sheepishly at the librarian, and, as apologetically as possible, sat down in her chair and tried to look invisible.

"Ahem, sorry about that. I must have tripped over. Please continue," she emitted in her best phone voice.

"Er, yes, as I was saying..." said Ivan, sounding slightly derailed. "It is our legal policy that you prove to us your ownership of the patent on these concept designs before we proceed. I'm prepared to meet with you personally if you have privacy concerns. Can I convince you to have a meeting with me? Perhaps over lunch?"

"Well, er, I guess. Um, I'm in town right now, near the library. We could meet in half an hour or so at the Central Library cafe if you like." She didn't mention that her bus card had no stages left on it. "I can't really be in town for a little while after this, so now would be best."

"Well Ms Rosewood, we're not about to let a design like this fall into the hands of the competition, so I guess I'll see you in half an hour. How will I recognise you?"

"I'll be wearing a witch's hat," she said, before she could stop herself. She was a closet Harry Potter fan, and happened to have a collapsible black witch's hat tucked in her pocket at that very moment. She grimaced at the thought of his reply.

"Ah, a fellow Potterite, eh? Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. You'll be able to recognise me by the phoenix emblem on the pocket of my shirt. I'll see you soon, then!"

"Tha-" said Emily, before realising that her phone battery had just run out. But even that couldn't faze her now. 300,000 dollars! She was sure she could construct her design for far less. She wondered if she got to keep the extra money. Then she laughed - if her invention became a big seller, she'd be rolling in royalties in no time! But then a sudden thought chilled her. The name on her patents was Emily Rose. She wandered out of the library, avoiding the icy glare of the needle-nosed librarian as she slipped through the sliding doors. She wasn't sure what to do. She didn't want to be famous. In fact she was very fond of her basement room, thank you very much! Besides, she knew that being well-known would limit her in many ways. Immersed in her thoughts, she continued walking, until she arrived at Albert Park, a gorgeous, sprawling inner-city park frequented by birds, Uni students, and business folk; all taking a peaceful moment apart from the grey rush of the city outside. Emily sat on the edge of the band rotunda and swung her legs. Perhaps if she...

Her thoughts were interrupted by someone calling her name.

"Emily! Emily babe! Hey girl!" It was Stewart, or "Stu", as he insisted upon being called, her current _kind of_-boyfriend. Not bad in bed, but he was a bit of a meat-head at times.

"Stu? Finished classes already?" Stewart was a journalism student at the nearby Auckland University.

"Nah babe, I skipped the lecture to hang out with the guys. We're gonna play duel monsters and have a few beers." He gave a high pitched snigger. "You wanna come?"

"No thanks, Stu. You know I don't like drinking," she muttered. "And besides, I've, ah, got to meet someone, a friend! At the library. Really soon actually. Gotta go, seeya!"

"Alright, sexy. Wanna come over to mine later?" he shouted as she dashed off.

"I'll text you!" she gasped, knowing full well that her phone's battery was empty.

She dashed frantically. She didn't know how much time had passed, since her phone was her only watch. She just hoped that she wasn't late! Skidding through the glass doors of the library, she yanked the witch's hat from her pocket and jammed it over her head. She glanced around the cafe. A medium-height, slightly ginger-haired man caught her eye. He walked over to her and extended his hand. A bold red emblem shimmered on his business shirt.

"Ms Rosewood! A pleasure to meet you," he said ecstatically, as she shook his hand limply.

"Mr Ivan... I mean, Mr Jones, I need to explain something," she said. "My real name is not... exactly... Ivy Rosewood. I-"

"A pseudonym, I presume?" blinked the man cheerfully. "Don't worry about that. We have a few clients that prefer to work under pseudonyms. The way this works is, you develop the technologies, Phoenix produces and sells the products. The company will receive the net profit, and then you will be paid 5% on each sale, calculated by monthly sales figures and paid to you at the end of each business month."

"Oh god, that's such a relief," Emily breathed. "My name's Emily Rose, actually. Nice to meet you!" She beamed backed at him as they sat down at the table.

"I figured as much - I ran your design through the Patent Office database, heh heh!"

She shrugged sheepishly as he slid a contract over to her.

"Here's the agreement in black and white. You might wanna get a lawyer to check it over for you, if you're not sure..."

His voice faded into the background as she imagined, again, all the things she could buy with the money she was going to make. Well, it all depended on her getting her invention done as soon as possible. But 300,000 dollars! She at least deserved to splash out a little. Ivan was staring at her.

"Ms Rose? Is that all okay?"

"Oh yes, it's fine," she blinked. "One question: what happens if I don't use all the money you've given me on the prototype?"

"That's all yours, as far as we're concerned. Provided we get a working prototype at the end of it, we don't care how you spend it. You will need to provide us with a list of all the costs associated with the development for our research purposes. It's written on the contract _here_, see?"

She looked at the contract for the first time. Skimming it briefly, she had to admit it was an extremely fair deal. Even if she _could_ somehow get a better deal elsewhere, she wasn't interested in trying. Phoenix Technologies seemed like a great company, and the money was right here, right now. She scrawled her name carefully at the bottom of the page.

"What's the date today?" she asked Ivan. The man seemed surprised by her quick decision.

"It's the, ah, thirteenth today," he said, peering quickly at his wristwatch, which was an odd opalescent shade of green. Emily liked it. "I've also got the confidentiality agreement here for you to sign. It basically says we won't divulge any personal information about you, and that we agree to protect the interests of you as an inventor, and partial employee of this company. You in turn agree to not share the details of this project, finished or unfinished, with any other person outside of the Phoenix Technologies contacts listed _here_."

He pointed again to a list of names and phone numbers. She signed her name elegantly at the bottom of the page and scanned the documents a second time.

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, Ivan." Her face shone with a beatific smile.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: Used new chapter, it's super effective. Enjoy and review or pm if you have any interesting comments or opinions!  
**

**~FM**

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**Chapter Thirteen**

Time, which had slowed to nearly a standstill over the last two years, suddenly came alive. She suddenly had money, she suddenly had a job, and most of all – she suddenly had purpose. Instead of her basement room, she now had a flat all of her very own; with a top floor that was soon littered with all kinds of electronics. She spent more money developing the device than she had anticipated; trying to get the balance between performance and price. Her first two prototypes failed to make it past Phoenix's rigorous testing, while her third attempt, while fully functional, was far over the price goal of $2000 that Ivan had suggested. It was monstrously powerful, in fact – so she kept it for herself, and used it to help her develop the consumer model, which was her fourth and last prototype. She named it the _Holo-Palm._

While she spent most of her newfound wealth frugally (as it was hard to shake off the careful spending habits she had developed during her semi-destitute phase at Uni), she found it hard to resist the urge to replace her entire wardrobe. She found it very relaxing, especially after a hard few days of work on the _Holo-Palm_, to indulge in a little bit (or a lot) of retail therapy. She had also begun taking more care in her appearance when she left the house; turning more than a few male heads as she strode down the streets with a confidence she had never felt before. Stu couldn't tolerate the attention she was getting, and their relationship, which had been floating dangerously close to destruction to begin with, burst with a little, jealous, _pop_.

The _Holo-Palm_ went into production shortly afterwards, and it quickly became the gadget everyone _had_ to own. It became, as Ivan put it, "the product that put New Zealand, and Phoenix Technologies, on the map". Desire for the product internationally skyrocketed, and Emily's 5% cut soon amounted to hundreds, thousands, and finally, millions of dollars.

Emily couldn't quite get used to the idea that she was a millionaire. In fact, she was barely aware of the fact. She spent most of her time at home now. She had quit studying at University, as she found that doing art at home in her own special art room was more rewarding. Not to mention the fact that it no longer looked like she required any diploma to get the career she wanted. She was an inventor now. So, in an effort to shake off the shades of her messy breakup with Stu, she set to work on her next invention.

Holographic technology had truly begun to take off. While people had been aware of its existence in the form of duel disks technology, the simple practicality of the _Holo-Palm_ was inspiring many developers. At a meeting at Phoenix Technologies, Ivan pointed out that some companies were already working on developing holographic TVs.

"Just between you and me, Emily, this is a bandwagon we should jump upon. I already have approval to begin development on a basic 40" television model with projection capabilities. Obviously we'll need to work on converting popular movies to the holographic format..."

Emily shook her head quietly. "It'll never work."

Ivan paused, interrupted mid-speech, his hands comically still in the descriptive pose he had assumed. "Pardon? Why not?"

"Well, most people already have a TV that they'll have spent at least a thousand dollars on," she began. "To ask them to spend more than that just for an upgrade to a new viewing format that isn't largely supported yet... it would be a brief fad, just like 3D screens. And besides, converting movies... when you could just... and then you could..."

Ivan recognised the look on her face. "Emily, do you want a pad of paper? A pencil?"

"I've got my _Holo-Palm_," said Emily dreamily. "Can I use this room? I need to get this idea worked out before I lose it."

The room in question was actually Ivan's office. But he didn't hesitate for a second. He shoved all the documents on the desk into his briefcase, pocketed his cellphone and his own _Holo-Palm _and swept out of the room.

"Can you bring me some snacks? And a drink as well?" called Emily, her eyes already glued to the floating image of a document in front of her; her fingers tapping relentlessly away on the virtual keys of her _Holo-Palm_.

Ivan grinned as he closed the door.

The next morning he was awoken by Emily gently shaking him.

"I didn't expect to find you still here," she whispered. "It's 4:30am. I'm finished."

Ivan heaved himself heavily off the couch where he had been sleeping. "Let me get a coffee, and then we'll see what you've come up with."

Emily gestured at the floating image of a simple-looking black box.

"My idea is quite simple. I haven't built the prototype, of course, but I've worked out exactly how I'll make it. It's an attachment for current Televisions that will project whatever is on the screen in holographic 3D. At the moment I'm focusing on digital TVs only, as analog is being phased out and would require more effort to get will work by converting the satellite signal directly and displaying the hologram on top of the original channel, or by processing the display on one channel and outputting the holographically converted version to another channel – to accommodate the time taken to convert the time taken to convert the image to hologram. It shouldn't be too hard to enough to code a program that will convert flat video into holographic video, and we can improve this software over time to be more accurate. I think our initial release will have to be quite simple, if there are time constraints, but we can improve that over time and the key selling point will be that no pre-conversion is necessary - any program can be watched in holographic 3D. I've done a little bit of base coding, and worked out enough of a concept for someone with reasonable technical expertise to understand." Noticing Ivan yawning hugely, she asked: "Do you like it?"

"It's five o'clock in the morning, Emily. I like the concept, or at least the part I can understand whilst being half asleep. I'll tell you what; you head home and get some sleep. I'll have a coffee and see what the higher-ups think of your concept."

Emily smiled to herself.

"Thanks, Ivan."

They met again a few days later.

Ivan grinned at Emily. "Well, it's a hit with our team, Emily. We're keen to get you working on a full prototype immediately. There is… one hitch, however."

He took a breath.

"Now I don't want you to take this the wrong way, Emily, but the CEO of our parent company wants to discuss this design before we can begin developing it. It may be that he still wants to go along with the original 3D TV concept, so you will need to fly over to the head office and really sell your idea to him. On that note: first class, or luxury jet?"

Emily blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Well, our parent company is based in Japan, and the CEO expressed an interest in seeing you before the end of the week... I mean, I don't want to rush you or anything, but he's a rather busy man, and I'd hate to see your concept get ignored…" he said nervously.

Emily, however, grinned.

"Well, I was feeling like a bit of a holiday, actually. After all, I wasn't up to much anyway. Finishing my painting of the train station can wait."

Emily balked suddenly.

"OH! I just realised, I don't have a passport!"

"That can be arranges quite easily," said Ivan smugly.

"I thought the process took a few weeks!" Emily gasped.

"I think you'll find that our CEO can be _quite_ influential," replied Ivan.

Emily considered his proposal briefly. What did she have to lose?

She sat up decisively. "Very well then, I'll take the next flight you can get me."

Ivan grinned and shook her hand. "I'll drive you to the airport myself."

It was dark. The plane Emily was on had left Auckland at 6:00am, and had successfully managed to escape the dawn for four hours. She had chosen to take first-class, rather than a private jet, in the hopes of having a little company on her flight. It was also her first plane trip, so she wanted the experience to be more representative of a normal person's first flight. Unfortunately, the small group of people she shared the comfortably furnished cabin with were all asleep save one; a haggard-looking businessman who was typing away on his laptop, earbuds firmly placed in his ears, forming a wall of sound that rendered Emily's attempts to communicate invisible. She reflected on the take-off. Even whilst firmly settled into her cosy chair, it had been very nerve-wracking. It was only when had seen how unfazed the other passengers were that she stopped clenching her hand-rests.

She pulled her shiny new passport out of her bag. It smelt strongly of plastic and freshly printed paper. She marvelled at the fact that it had arrived less than twenty-four hours after her meeting with Ivan. Whoever this CEO was, he certainly commanded a considerable amount of clout. Thinking about him made her feel a twinge of nervousness. She hoped he wouldn't be difficult to talk to. She had a horrible vision of a stodgy, grey-haired old Japanese businessman, hard of hearing, who discarded her ideas contemptuously before she had a chance to explain them. She shuddered. Still, it wouldn't be the end of the world. She resolved to have fun – after all, she had never been travelling before. And she had plenty of money to spend – she could be a serious tourist!

A pretty stewardess walked past and caught her eye.

"Can I get you anything, ma'am?"

"Yes please," said Emily. "Is the pilot awake? I want to see the cockpit!"


End file.
